“It just Ain’t Right”

Last Saturday the Sneads Lady Pirates volleyball squad was ousted from the FHSAA Regional Finals for the second straight year by Maclay. After the match Sneads Head Coach Shelia Roberts voiced her frustration with public schools having to play private schools in the playoffs. (See related article on this page).
I’ve used this column previously to express my agreement with Coach Robert’s opinion. It is an opinion that is greatly shared by numerous public school coaches and administrators. My previous columns about this matter have laid out some of the advantages that private schools have over public schools so I won’t take up space repeating those advantages. Instead I’ll lay out some numbers that will demonstrate the stranglehold the private schools have on the lower classification playoffs (there are no large classification private schools) and how it directly impacts our Jackson County high schools.

For the 2009 volleyball playoffs in classes 1A, 2A & 3A Sneads was the only public school out of 24 teams in the Final 8 teams for all three respective classifications. The 2008 volleyball playoffs were exactly the same. All three State Champions for both years were from private schools. Think volleyball is unique? Wrong.

In the 2008 football playoffs for class 1B 15 out of all 16 teams making the playoffs were private schools. Graceville was the only public school. In classes 1A, 2B & 2A 7 out of 12 of the final four teams were private schools. All state champions for the four lower classifications were private schools.

In the 2008 boy’s basketball playoffs 10 out of final 12 teams in classes 1A, 2A, & 3A were private schools. Marianna was one of only two public schools to make it to Lakeland. All three state champs were from private schools. The numbers are exactly the same for the girls. Cottondale was only one of two public schools to make it to Lakeland and again all three state champs were from private schools.

Think baseball and softball are any better? Wrong again. Malone was the last remaining public school in the final 8 teams of the Class 1A 2008 baseball playoffs. Class 2A actually had two public schools make it to the final four but Class 3A was all private. All three state champs came from private schools. In softball Graceville was the last remaining public school team in the final 8 in Class 1A. In the lower three classes only 5 out of 24 teams were from public schools and the private schools claimed all three state championships.

So out of 19 2008 state championships in the above sports and classifications, there was not a single state champion that came from a public school. A check of the years prior to 2008 reveals very similar numbers. Like Coach Roberts said, Simply Put, that’s not right and it ought to be fixed.

From the front porch: Uncle Bob’s son in law said that if he just had some humility he’d be perfect.