(07-24-2015 05:26 PM)Old Sammy Wrote:  It's an old problem ramped up. 50 years ago an oil company transferred staff with good football talent sons preferentially to the Midland/Odessa area. The best swimmer at my HS was an out-of-state transfer who picked our school because it was a state swimming power and had the best facilities.

(07-24-2015 09:18 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Doesn't work for schools like Strake Jesuit in Houston. They play UIL, but are required to play in a 6A district....with the Katy Schools. More than evens the playing field.

(07-24-2015 09:18 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Doesn't work for schools like Strake Jesuit in Houston. They play UIL, but are required to play in a 6A district....with the Katy Schools. More than evens the playing field.

(07-24-2015 10:33 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 09:18 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Doesn't work for schools like Strake Jesuit in Houston. They play UIL, but are required to play in a 6A district....with the Katy Schools. More than evens the playing field.

That was the correct decision by the UIL IMHO. They have to play in the largest class where they are located if they want to play in the UIL. It is why you don't see that many accept the challenge. In Minnesota there is no private school athletic competition.

(07-24-2015 06:58 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  At least in Texas the move of the UIL to allow private schools to play in the UIL is very minimal. That was the problem I saw in Minnesota, the private and parochial schools had a huge advantage. Because baseball only had 3 classifications (football has 5) schools like we were at with an enrollment of approx 350 were in the bottom of the second class competing with schools of enrollments of up to 1500. It wasn't too bad if you were going up against public schools from mid size cities like St Cloud where there were several schools. The problem was the parochial school St Cloud Cathedral who could recruit the entire city of St. Cloud as well as some of the metropolitan area. Little wonder they have won 15 state titles most since 1980. They have won 50 games in a row and the last two titles. Also explains why the parochial schools dominate the lower of the two hockey classes.

(07-24-2015 11:55 PM)chrisc Wrote:  Of course, the numbers in this document are double the actual enrollment because both schools are all male.

http://www.uiltexas.org/files/alignments/6A.pdf

(07-25-2015 10:37 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 11:55 PM)chrisc Wrote:  Of course, the numbers in this document are double the actual enrollment because both schools are all male.

http://www.uiltexas.org/files/alignments/6A.pdf

Great point. If you assume the others are ~50/50 male/female, that would make Strake the largest male school in the district. It's also probably one of, if not the toughest, in the district academically.

I'm suspect there is recruiting going on at these public schools as well, so all in, I agree it makes sense for Strake to play 6A.

Wow, the UIL got it right?

(07-25-2015 02:22 PM)MemOwl Wrote:  Jesuit has struggled in football the last few years. The school has produced fewer than 1.0 FBS football recruit per season on average since joining UIL. I would say the combination of tuition, academic requirements and scale make it a paper tiger in HS football compared to many area programs.

Katy is not a big factory for D1 talent either, but they have so many players that the system effect takes over. When my son was a senior at Strake, there were about 15 seniors on the football team. Katy likely had 60 or more. They beat us by something like 51-7

depth matters.

Jesuit has averaged more than 1.0 D1 basketball players per year since joining UIL and that has resulted in very strong performance--several district titles in a row and a trip to the UIL final 4 in 2009.

Strake and Dallas Jesuit would not be 6A on enrollment alone--they are there because of the settlement terms. I think it is a fair compromise.

EDIT--just read the article. a lot of focus on players moving during their HS careers. That basically doesn't happen at Strake, in my experience. Actually it does--players leave, like the Harrison twins who are now in the NBA. But players don't come in except in rare cases. Klein Kubiak transferred from Regis Jesuit in Denver when Gary got the Texans job. I don't think that is the type of recruiting the article worries about.

Jesuit can raise awareness of its offerings via summer camps and hosting middle school competitions in all sports (usually for Catholic grammar schools). But the error rates on player evaluations in 8th grade are high. Moreover, there is anecdotal evidence (ie, rumors) that several elite athletes at area high schools were denied admission by Strake Jesuit.

(07-25-2015 11:35 AM)ArmChairOwl Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 10:37 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 11:55 PM)chrisc Wrote:  Of course, the numbers in this document are double the actual enrollment because both schools are all male.

http://www.uiltexas.org/files/alignments/6A.pdf

Great point. If you assume the others are ~50/50 male/female, that would make Strake the largest male school in the district. It's also probably one of, if not the toughest, in the district academically.

I'm suspect there is recruiting going on at these public schools as well, so all in, I agree it makes sense for Strake to play 6A.

Wow, the UIL got it right?

On the Strake Jesuit website the stated enrollment for last year was 996: Strake Jesuit website link

That's a very good enrollment for an all boys' school. The athletic facilities there are what I would consider top notch also, but I have not seen what the Katy schools have. My guess is that the facilities at Katy are outstanding. Taking about half the enrollment of the others (boys/girls) does not make Jesuit the largest in the district. Katy looks to be right in the middle, and half of their enrollment is 1609 (600 more than Jesuit). Seven Lakes is very large - I did not realize that. The smallest in that district is the new school (Tompkins) at 1672 - take half of that to approximate males would be 836. Tompkins, by the way, was one of Jesuit's two district wins last year. I do like that Jesuit competes at the highest level. However, they've struggled in football against St. Thomas Catholic (their arch-rival) the past 3 years, I believe.