My Solution to Fix Mississippi High School Sports

paindonthurt

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Good job following along. This thread is about changing how HS sports in MS are separated.
But you were asked why regarding changing it and your answer was why not? Basically

Being separated is only potentially hurting the one side who chooses to be separated
 

OG Goat Holder

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People separate things all the time in life.
Bro....don't think you want to go that route.

But....to answer your question earlier in the thread.....no private school would be forced to join MHSAA. I'm sure if it ever happened, the big 6 would collectively make that decision.

And you asked why they would do this. To win something of substance, a real playoff against a bigger division - not a playoff similar to a Grand Slam travel ball tournament on any weekend in Magee.
 

DesotoCountyDawg

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Sure- where I grew up there are some parochial superconferences that exist...but those teams still play schools in other conferences and still participate in the state's athletic association.

Chicago Catholic Conference is 17 schools in the city and burbs.
East Suburban Catholic Conference is 9 schools in the metro.

They play one another since they are in conferenfes, but would also play against publics during the regular season and post season.
One of the ESCC schools was a couple minutes from my house and we played them in every sport I can remember. They constantly played all the surrounding publics, even though their enrollment was not even half the size. They pulled from 15mi away for sure so maybe more too, so it wasnt inherently lopsided either way.

Anyways, it's probably just that I grew up with public and private playing against one another at all times and as an adult see it and experience it with coaching so it seems normal and I don't see the downside.

Tennessee separates theirs just because of structure. They certainly play one another. When I was at SBEC (now Northpoint) we played some Tennessee public schools. Division games were all against other private schools. All under the same governing body but separated in different divisions.

And Tennessee has a provision where you can submit to play in a bigger classification if you want.
 
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8dog

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You'd have to work on the index. 1.3 is not enough, but if you go to 1.8 you get the six 6A MAIS schools into 5A. Here would be your five regions, by geography.

Region 1 (North)
DeSoto Central
Southaven
Hernando
Horn Lake
Oxford
Lewisburg
Center Hill
Olive Branch

Region 2 (East)
Tupelo
Grenada
Brandon
Hartfield
Northwest Rankin
Pearl
South Panola
Starkville

Region 3 (Central)
Madison Central
Germantown
Jackson Prep
Jackson Academy
MRA
Madison St. Joseph
Murrah
Ridgeland

Region 4 (South)
Warren Central
Clinton
Oak Grove
Petal
Presbyterian Christian
George County
Terry
Meridian

Region 5 (Gulf Coast)
Ocean Springs
Gulfport
Biloxi
St. Martin
Harrison Central
D'Iberville
Hancock
West Harrison

Based on last year's results (using MP Computer Ranking), the automatic qualifiers to the playoffs would be:

North: Oxford (19), Lewisburg (55)
East: Brandon (3), Starkville (5)
Central: Madison Central (8), Jackson Prep (17)
South: Oak Grove (1), Meridian (21)
Gulf Coast: Ocean Springs (15), Gulfport (23)

The six at-large teams would be:
Hartfield (6)
Tupelo (7)
Warren Central (16)
MRA (20)
Germantown (31)
Terry (42)

Division I playoff teams (largest 8 schools) would be: Tupelo (7), Ocean Springs (15), Oak Grove (1), Gulfport (23), Madison Central (8), Brandon (3), Germantown (31), Starkville (5)

Division II playoff teams (smallest 8 schools) would be: Lewisburg (55), Jackson Prep (17), Meridian (21), Hartfield (6), Warren Central (16), MRA (20), Terry (42), Oxford (19)

Division I playoff matchups:
#1 Oak Grove vs. #8 Germantown
#2 Brandon vs. #7 Gulfport
#3 Starkville vs. #6 Ocean Springs
$4 Tupelo vs. #5 Madison Central

Division II Playoff Matchups
#1 Hartfield vs. #8 Lewisburg
#2 Warren Central vs. #7 Terry
#3 Jackson Prep vs. #6 Meridian
#4 Oxford vs. #5 MRA
I cannot understand how anything is better where MAIS schools play Lewisburg, Meridian or Oxford. How are you getting there?
 

615dawg

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I cannot understand how anything is better where MAIS schools play Lewisburg, Meridian or Oxford. How are you getting there?
I can't tell if you are making fun of the idea or you are supportive.

The Division I/II split does not come until the end of the season. When the 16 playoff teams are established, the largest eight play in D1 and the smallest eight play in D2. The really big schools would always be D1, the smaller ones and the private schools would always be D2. There could be some crossover from year to year in the middle, as there is in Texas.

For example, there could be a scenario where a school like Germantown would need DeSoto Central to beat Lewisburg in order to make the D2, otherwise they would be D1 for that season. I believe in Texas, a team that made the finals the year before in D1 cannot drop to D2 the next season.

In the scenario above, I believe Hartfield gets to the final 8 out of 10 times. They may not get past Warren Central to win it, but they certainly beat Lewisburg and MRA/Oxford.

There were 23 schools playing at the highest level in the MHSAA. 16 made the playoffs.
There were 6 schools playing at the highest level in the MAIS, 6 made the playoffs.

So roughly 76 percent of teams make the playoffs. A 3-7 Southaven team made the 7A playoffs while a 5-5 Northwest Rankin team that beat one of the semifinalists sat at home.
 
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8dog

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I can't tell if you are making fun of the idea or you are supportive.

The Division I/II split does not come until the end of the season. When the 16 playoff teams are established, the largest eight play in D1 and the smallest eight play in D2. The really big schools would always be D1, the smaller ones and the private schools would always be D2. There could be some crossover from year to year in the middle, as there is in Texas.

For example, there could be a scenario where a school like Germantown would need DeSoto Central to beat Lewisburg in order to make the D2, otherwise they would be D1 for that season.

In the scenario above, I believe Hartfield gets to the final 8 out of 10 times. They may not get past Warren Central to win it, but they certainly beat Lewisburg and MRA/Oxford.

There were 23 schools playing at the highest level in the MHSAA. 16 made the playoffs.
There were 6 schools playing at the highest level in the MAIS, 6 made the playoffs.

So roughly 76 percent of teams make the playoffs. A 3-7 Southaven team made the 7A playoffs while a 5-5 Northwest Rankin team that beat one of the semifinalists sat at home.
I don’t understand why it would be a good situation for a school with 300+ kids to have to play a school with a 1000 kids in the playoffs. That sounds terrible. Maybe I don’t understand something. The MAIS 6A is a bad situation but this doesn’t seem to help it.
 
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paindonthurt

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Bro....don't think you want to go that route.

But....to answer your question earlier in the thread.....no private school would be forced to join MHSAA. I'm sure if it ever happened, the big 6 would collectively make that decision.

And you asked why they would do this. To win something of substance, a real playoff against a bigger division - not a playoff similar to a Grand Slam travel ball tournament on any weekend in Magee.
Ok they can do that if they choose to but why are a bunch of never been middle aged men arguing about it on the internet?

why even have a strong opinion?
 

615dawg

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I don’t understand why it would be a good situation for a school with 300+ kids to have to play a school with a 1000 kids in the playoffs. That sounds terrible. Maybe I don’t understand something. The MAIS 6A is a bad situation but this doesn’t seem to help it.
It probably makes more sense to go with a lower index like Alabama and let the MAIS schools grow into the higher classification. But an MAIS school would win volleyball, softball and probably baseball at the highest level this year. It can't be all about football.

You have to get the MAIS out of school accreditation. Its a joke and there should be some major questions asked. Some of these private schools are completely failing at educating our kids in the name of winning at sports. Unqualified administrators and teachers.

Hartfield is one of the good ones and they are SACS accredited and their average ACT is less than Northwest Rankin. What do you think is happening at these non-SACS accredited schools throughout Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee that can only exist because of the MAIS?

Another thing to ponder - SACS accreditation is not all that difficult to obtain. Every JPS school has it.
 

8dog

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It probably makes more sense to go with a lower index like Alabama and let the MAIS schools grow into the higher classification. But an MAIS school would win volleyball, softball and probably baseball at the highest level this year. It can't be all about football.
Alabama also promotes. So start teams where they should be and then promote them when a school like JA wins VB each year.
 

615dawg

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Alabama also promotes. So start teams where they should be and then promote them when a school like JA wins VB each year.
Thats another good idea. Let them compete at a lower classification, but if they win back-to-back championships, they move up in particular sports.
 
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OG Goat Holder

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Ok they can do that if they choose to but why are a bunch of never been middle aged men arguing about it on the internet?

why even have a strong opinion?
Because we want to? Because we have a stake in it? Because we care?

You sound like a radical democrat. "Why do you care if they are rioting and protesting, it's not about you!!!!"

Typical deflection technique.

Why do you care if we care?
 

Called3rdstrikedawg

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Not really, except for a few outliers. Pretty much all the small schools are fine. The problem is at the top, both in MHSAA and MAIS. There are a smaller amount of schools that are just bigger than everyone else. In MHSAA 7A (biggest division), there's still plenty of teams to have a fairly equal 16 team playoff, but the problem is there are only 24 teams in 7A. Same in 6A and 5A. Then, over in MAIS, there's only like 6 teams in the top division, so I joke that it's like winning a travel ball tournament. Then the next division down is like 16 teams total.

So, you've got like a parabolic curve going on. Not much else you can do but decrease the size of the playoffs for MHSAA, or combine with another state or something.
They will never agree to do it but MAIS needs to merge some schools instead of opening more.

Greenwood had Pillow that pretty much served all of Leflore County so why even open Delta Streets in downtown Greenwood?

Ruleville/Drew are 8 miles for Cleveland. Why have tiny North Sunflower when they could merge with Bayou?

Greenville Christian and Washington School should merge.

Indianola and Deer Creek

Manchester and Humphries

so many more
 

mstateglfr

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But you were asked why regarding changing it and your answer was why not? Basically

Being separated is only potentially hurting the one side who chooses to be separated
I responded with that lazy comment because that what I thought the post deserved.

It is OK to discuss things and ask 'is this the best way, or is there a better way?' because that is how progress happens. That is how things improve.

Sitting there and crying 'why change?' is lazy and bitter. If there are good reasons to not merge, then discuss those. But just complaining that the question is being asked is pretty lame.
 

mstateglfr

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Ok they can do that if they choose to but why are a bunch of never been middle aged men arguing about it on the internet?

why even have a strong opinion?
Do you really not understand the basic appeal of a message board? Or socializing at a bar? Or at a golf league?

F17S.

I half want to screenshot your post above and just paste it to your future posts where you argue and have strong opinions, but I doubt you would manage to connect why I was doing that so it would be a waste of time.

Clown.
 

paindonthurt

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Because we want to? Because we have a stake in it? Because we care?

You sound like a radical democrat. "Why do you care if they are rioting and protesting, it's not about you!!!!"

Typical deflection technique.

Why do you care if we care?
I don’t care that you care.

I care that you think YOUR opinion is how it should be.
 

paindonthurt

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Do you really not understand the basic appeal of a message board? Or socializing at a bar? Or at a golf league?

F17S.

I half want to screenshot your post above and just paste it to your future posts where you argue and have strong opinions, but I doubt you would manage to connect why I was doing that so it would be a waste of time.

Clown.
I don’t think you’ll find me telling organizations what they should do bc I want them to.

If MAIS wants to join the public school association and the public school association wants it, then great.

But no one should be telling MAIS what they need or have to do.
 
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mstateglfr

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There are plenty of people here implying what they should do.
Yeah, and that is different from literally sending the organization a letter and demanding they change.
It's 17ing conversation- seriously, do you have some cognitive disconnect where you don't realize you opine on how things should be?

Teams should trade for a player.
Teams should trade a player away.
A coach should be hired.
A coach should be fired.
A player needs to be be benched.
A player needs to play more.

Etc etc etc- this is how conversations on sports...and really a bunch of other stuff, works. People give their view and then you respond in any number of ways to that view. It continues and often pulls in others with more views.
It's been happening here for a couple decades now.
 

paindonthurt

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Yeah, and that is different from literally sending the organization a letter and demanding they change.
It's 17ing conversation- seriously, do you have some cognitive disconnect where you don't realize you opine on how things should be?

Teams should trade for a player.
Teams should trade a player away.
A coach should be hired.
A coach should be fired.
A player needs to be be benched.
A player needs to play more.

Etc etc etc- this is how conversations on sports...and really a bunch of other stuff, works. People give their view and then you respond in any number of ways to that view. It continues and often pulls in others with more views.
It's been happening here for a couple decades now.
Blah blah blah
 

Son_of_34

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To hell with a private school...the produce one good baseball player every other year 17 them
 

Maroon Eagle

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Sitting there and crying 'why change?' is lazy and bitter. If there are good reasons to not merge, then discuss those. But just complaining that the question is being asked is pretty lame.

You realize of course that lazy and bitter is at best a lot of folks’ schtick or raison d’être at worst here…
 
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Maroon Eagle

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I’m not being a troll. I think it’s absurd that people think a privately funded organization should do anything other than what they want within reasonable law.

It’s cute that you think that the MAIS (in the form of its schools) wants to be or remain privately funded.

 

Maroon Eagle

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Nope, because the problem is at the higher levels, the 7A schools kill everybody. There's no competition at the top in MAIS either, the annual playoff between Prep, JA, MRA and now Hartfield is a joke.

You'd have Brandon playing Florence, with much less than half the enrollment.

Eh. That’s the way it works sometimes.

There ain’t no perfect system. But is it good enough?


You'd have to work on the index. 1.3 is not enough, but if you go to 1.8 you get the six 6A MAIS schools into 5A. Here would be your five regions, by geography.

Ah… you have access to MAIS individual schools’ enrollment numbers…

This may be a wishful thinking exercise but at least it’s rooted in real data.

Not really, except for a few outliers. Pretty much all the small schools are fine. The problem is at the top, both in MHSAA and MAIS. There are a smaller amount of schools that are just bigger than everyone else. In MHSAA 7A (biggest division), there's still plenty of teams to have a fairly equal 16 team playoff, but the problem is there are only 24 teams in 7A. Same in 6A and 5A. Then, over in MAIS, there's only like 6 teams in the top division, so I joke that it's like winning a travel ball tournament. Then the next division down is like 16 teams total.

So, you've got like a parabolic curve going on. Not much else you can do but decrease the size of the playoffs for MHSAA, or combine with another state or something.

It’s the Circle of Life.

The Big can feast on the Small. But at least the Big Schools don’t typically play the Small Schools.

Who the 17 is it hurting that JA PREP MRA HARTFIELD ETC PLAY IN MAIS?

The only people who could possibly be hurt from this are the people who choose to go to those schools. No one else is hurt. Not one soul.

Agreed.

I’d also add possibly those folks who are in the schools in the same classification as the above four.

The above four make it a point not to play really small schools unless they’re known to be competitive (e.g., Greenville Christian 2-3 years back).
 
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L4Dawg

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For private schools that can accept kids from anywhere. It's a real problem when private schools play in the public league, and decide they will do whatever it takes to compete in sports. We had a little preview of what would happen in NE Miss.
 
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patdog

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Simplest and most realistic solution is go back to 6 classes. You can limit 6A to 24 teams if you want just because of the enrollment differences. But 36 in 5A, 48 in 4A-2A, and the remainder (a little over 40) in 1A. Solve 6A travel by going to 3 divisions:
Horn Lake, Southaven, Desoto Central, Hernando, Lewisville, Oxford, Tupelo, Starkville
Germantown, Madison Central, Clinton, Murrah, NW Rankin, Brandon, Pearl, Meridian
Oak Grove, Petal, Ocean Springs, St Martin, Biloxi, d'Iberville, Gulfport, Harrison Central
 
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Maroon Eagle

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Simplest and most realistic solution is go back to 6 classes. You can limit 6A to 24 teams if you want just because of the enrollment differences. But 36 in 5A, 48 in 4A-2A, and the remainder (a little over 40) in 1A. Solve 6A travel by going to 3 divisions:
I like that.

What do you think playoff wise?

Top four teams from each region and MAIS style powerpoints for the best runner-up to get the bye?

Or region winners and five best others determined by powerpoints?
 

patdog

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I like that.

What do you think playoff wise?

Top four teams from each region and MAIS style powerpoints for the best runner-up to get the bye?

Or region winners and five best others determined by powerpoints?
I'd take 12 teams, top 4 from each division. Northernmost 2 central playoff teams go north, southernmost go south. 3 division champs get bye plus highest ranked runner up. That's 6A playoffs.

Other classes, top 3 from each 6-team division make playoffs. Division champs get bye & home game in 2nd round. Runners up get home game in 1st round.
 
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johnson86-1

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I don't understand why anyone would want to separate them.

Only reason is recruiting (which really only matters for Prep, JA, MRA, Hartfield, and maybe St. Stanislaus) and people being very hung up on whether public or private schools out perform.

Lot of people have a weird obsession of whether a school is public or private. Can't tell you how many people I've met that essentially brag about "supporting their public school" and sending their kid there. And it will be a place like Tupelo or Madison Central, where you get a good education for free (or at least, for taxes you're paying regardless), like it is somehow noble to do that. And I've seen people talk about how much better the environment is at their local private school when the local school is just fine and if anything it's the private school kids that can afford the "good" drugs.

So you have a lot of people that get a lot of angst about the idea of MRA or Hartfield beating up on similarly sized public schools, so they don't want private schools unless there is a multiplier that would make the huge majority of private schools completely uncompetitive, and it's not really easy to divide between the recruiters and non-recruiters because the recruiting is semi-under the table.
 

OG Goat Holder

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Simplest and most realistic solution is go back to 6 classes. You can limit 6A to 24 teams if you want just because of the enrollment differences. But 36 in 5A, 48 in 4A-2A, and the remainder (a little over 40) in 1A. Solve 6A travel by going to 3 divisions:
Horn Lake, Southaven, Desoto Central, Hernando, Lewisville, Oxford, Tupelo, Starkville
Germantown, Madison Central, Clinton, Murrah, NW Rankin, Brandon, Pearl, Meridian
Oak Grove, Petal, Ocean Springs, St Martin, Biloxi, d'Iberville, Gulfport, Harrison Central
People will still bltch about too many people making the playoff in 6A. So I don't think it solves anything.

I think 7A (or 6A, whichever one) will just need to reach out to other states and play more big games like that before district play. There will be more travel, yes, but they also have more resources, so it is what it is. At least they will get more caloric density that way and not beat up on smaller teams. And who cares if more teams make the playoff, it'll still be an accomplishment to win 7A.
 

OG Goat Holder

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Only reason is recruiting (which really only matters for Prep, JA, MRA, Hartfield, and maybe St. Stanislaus) and people being very hung up on whether public or private schools out perform.

Lot of people have a weird obsession of whether a school is public or private. Can't tell you how many people I've met that essentially brag about "supporting their public school" and sending their kid there. And it will be a place like Tupelo or Madison Central, where you get a good education for free (or at least, for taxes you're paying regardless), like it is somehow noble to do that. And I've seen people talk about how much better the environment is at their local private school when the local school is just fine and if anything it's the private school kids that can afford the "good" drugs.

So you have a lot of people that get a lot of angst about the idea of MRA or Hartfield beating up on similarly sized public schools, so they don't want private schools unless there is a multiplier that would make the huge majority of private schools completely uncompetitive, and it's not really easy to divide between the recruiters and non-recruiters because the recruiting is semi-under the table.
The small private schools will end up recruiting too, if they all start playing public. Best to just leave them separated from about 3A or 4A on down.
 

615dawg

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Lots of passionate opinions when it comes to education in this state. Public and private. But this past year at both the 7A MHSAA and 6A MAIS levels were complete garbage when it came to the playoffs.

But, the best team still won both.

MAIS is going to be hard to fix as long as there are only six schools playing at the highest level. MHSAA could fix a lot of issues by restructuring their playoff from a region-based to a strength-based system. Of course the DeSoto schools won't be on board with that when they have 3-7 teams making the playoffs and teams ranked No. 55 in the RPI hosting playoff games.

Region 2 and Region 3 went 7-1 against Region 1 and 4. The one win was a fluke overtime win that was horribly officiated and should result in mass firings of officials.
 
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