District IX
 

Ed note: this article was downloaded from another site, either D6 or D7, and I don't
remember which...  not trying to avoid giving accreditation. 
From: "Brad M Koontz"
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 05:57:50 PDT
The following was sent from Brad Koontz..
 
                          Private School Advantage
 
                                By Sam Shuss
                        Bedford Gazette Sports Editor
 
I try not to be biased in my sports reporting, but it is very hard for
me to do that when it comes to one subject: private schools in the PIAA.
First of all, I have nothing against private schools competing in the
PIAA. I think that they have some of the best teams in the state,
particularly in basketball, and the competition has been great.
However, they compete at an unfair advantage over the public schools in
several different ways.  If they choose to, they can limit the number of
students that enroll at the school, while a public school cannot. This
enables the school to stay at low numbers to qualify for the lowest possible
classification in the PIAA.  If a student is a troublemaker, a private
school can get rid of him. A public school can suspend that student, but
while the student can't compete, he or she counts against the enrollment.
 
A private school can recruit and it does. A public school can not recruit in
any way, shape or form (although I have heard that it is done on a regular
basis in some schools in the eastern part of the state).  The schools around
this area know that it happens. When the Northern Bedford basketball team was
losing to Kennedy Christian in the state playoffs last year, many of the KG
fans were chanting "Overrated!" to the Panthers and in particular, A.J.
Nastasi. The Panther fans, knowing the game was out of hand, returned the
chant "We don't recruit."  A look at the state basketball playoffs shows the
dominance of the private schools, particularly at the smaller classifications.
Over the past 25 years, 38 percent of the boys A teams and 40 percent of the
girls A teams in the state finals were private schools, while the private
schools make up only 31 percent of the boys schools and 30 percent of girls
schools.  There is more of a disparity in the AA. On the boys side, 30
percent of the teams in the state finals were private, but private schools
make up only 13 percent of the schools. With the girls' AA, 40 percent
of the state finalists were private, yet private schools make up only nine
percent of the schools.  This shows that there is some advantage that the
smaller, private schools have over the public schools.  My suggestion to
eliminate this inequality would be to make the private schools compete at a
classification one higher than what they qualify for.  It may not solve all
of the problems, but at least its an attempt to equal out the apparent
disparity. Think about that if you see Bishop McCort, who is an A football
team this fall and who several years ago promised the Laurel Highlands that
they would be an AAA team, play Everett, Tussey Mountain, Claysburg or
Northern Bedford in the District 5-6 playoffs this fall.

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