GHSA votes to separate Class A public, private schools for playoffs and championships
By S. Thomas Coleman
For the AJC
MACON — The landscape of high school athletics in Georgia took an unprecedented turn on Tuesday when the executive committee of the Georgia High School Association voted overwhelmingly to hold separate public and private school playoffs and championships in all Class A sports, beginning this fall.
The resolution, which was introduced by Charlton County athletic director Jesse Crews, passed by a vote of 37-12, with one abstention. The result will be two, 16-team tournaments – one for public schools and one for private schools — that should keep more than 30 of Georgia’s smaller high schools from leaving the GHSA and forming their own sports league. Representatives from those schools believed there has been a competitive imbalance between public and private schools at the Class A level because of private schools’ ability to accept any student without geographic restriction.
The GHSA’s recently approved region assignments will remain in place because they had been approved prior to Tuesday’s vote, which means public and private schools will continue to compete against each other during the regular season.
GHSA officials said they will meet with various members in upcoming months to best figure out how to seed the 16-team brackets. Ralph Swearngin, executive director of the GHSA, said the process will be developed by the schools that are directly impacted by the vote, with a March timeline. It is unclear whether the public and private Class A champions will play a plus-one game when the five other classifications play for titles at the Georgia Dome in December.
“I think we have enough good minds [within the GHSA] to figure it out,” Swearngin said.
Tuesday’s vote apparently ends the movement to create the Georgia Public Schools Association. That group, which was attracting interest from more than 40 small, mostly rural, schools, held its last meeting on Monday. More than 83 representatives in the room were asked to cast ballots by Jan. 24 on what their schools planned to do in response to whatever the GHSA voted to do on Tuesday. The choices were commit to pull out of the GHSA and join the GPSA, stay in the GHSA or remain undecided.
Wilcox County principal Chad Davis, a leader in the movement, was prepared to vote for seceding from the GHSA. He seemed relieved that his school will not have to.
“I don’t think that there is the need for [the GPSA] now,” Davis said. “That’s my personal opinion, but we’re going to check with other schools that were involved in the process in the next few weeks.
“I’m very surprised by the [GHSA] vote,” he said. “I didn’t think they would do anything.”
Judging by the three-to-one margin of the vote and pleas from several executive committee members to preserve the current membership makeup of the GHSA, it appears as if the GPSA movement had a significant impact.
“I don’t think of this as a victory,” Davis said. “I’m just pleased.”
“[The vote] was a little stronger than I thought it would be,” Swearngin said. “I think there are a variety of reasons why people voted how they did. I think the pleas for unity being in the best interest of everyone was a factor.”
One such vote came from Albert “Pat” Blenke, a Georgia Department of Education Administrator who sits on the GHSA executive committee. During the meeting, he said: “This is one of the biggest decisions we have to make as an organization. Eventually, the state legislators are going to get tired of hearing the complaints from their constituents, and they will do something. And as sure as I’m standing here, whatever they do will not be beneficial to the schools.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand,” Blenke said.
But after the vote he added, “Every decision you make is going to have unintended consequences.”
Others expressed concern over the vote, as well.
“Our biggest thing is we feel the GHSA is one of the top four high school associations in the nation, and I think we just made ourselves weaker. The best should play the best,” said Eagle’s Landing Christian Academy athletic director Scott Queen, who voted no. “We want to compete against the Lincoln County’s and the Clinch County’s, even though we haven’t beaten them yet. I just think this is going to be very hard to pull off.”
Buford athletic director Dexter Wood cast a “no” vote as well, which was aimed at the process, more than the resolution.
“My chief point of contention is that as an executive committee member we’re seeing this [proposal] for the first time and we’re being asked to make such a huge decision,” Wood said. “I would like to have had more time.”
Wood is also concerned that the next “target” will be single-city school districts with one high school, similar to Buford and Calhoun. Those schools have begun to come under fire for their ability to attract county students and allow them to enroll for a minimal amount of tuition – usually around $200 per month.
“It seems to be that the time has come where we are trying to level the playing field everywhere, and that’s such a relative matter,” Wood said. “There are definite differences between private schools and a city high school.”
AJC staff writer Michael Carvell contributed to this story.
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417 comments Add your comment
Kent Smith
January 11th, 2012
11:08 am
I have two athletes who spent entire school years at Lovett & Westminster. I am struck by the cynicism regarding private school recruiting, which is an overblown myth. Their advantage lies in coaching and kids in the system longer. Now living in Florida, they would laugh at the GHSA’s decision to bend over backwards. Walmartdawg is right, let them go and they would be back.
jvillebil
January 11th, 2012
11:09 am
Sid, I mised something, is this over a period of years? How far does it go back. I’m not sure I understand the comment.
The Brick
January 11th, 2012
11:16 am
SO if we were going to rank the GHSA classifications would it go 6A 5A 4A 3A 2A 1A-Private 1A-Public or will it be 1A-Public then 1A-Private??
I’d put public last just because they’re the ones that ran from the competition!
JT
January 11th, 2012
11:26 am
TM:
“Any school that accepts students from outside their district will play up one classification”.
What if it’s a AAAAAA school?
What if it’s a City school whose “district” encompasses that of 6 public schools
What if it’s a City school whose “district” encompasses that of 6 public schools which are in the same region as the City school?
Publics play publics in the playoffs
City’s play City’s in the play offs
Privates play Privates in the playoffs
gomez
January 11th, 2012
11:27 am
@The Brick
Class A public is now – Class B
JT
January 11th, 2012
11:28 am
Bucket:
“The public schools that have dominated GHSA football recruit just as much as any private school in this state”.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAH
The Brick
January 11th, 2012
11:38 am
Publics play publics in the playoffs
City’s play City’s in the play offs
Privates play Privates in the playoffs
Why run from the competition?? The real world doesn’t work this way!! We’re already going to have SEVEN state champions next year… that’s seperation enough!! Put multipliers on students who attend schools where they don’t live. Make the schools that get large numbers of kids play up, but adding even more classes is boarderline insane. In 10 years were going to have 14 state titles to hand out if we don’t stop this insanity.
DublinDawg
January 11th, 2012
11:39 am
Sav’h dawg
First of all I am not from Lincoln County little man. Second, I’m all for a better education, Christian atmosphere and free world. I was only pointing out that a public school (Lincoln County) should not have to play a private (or City) school (Savannah Christian) in the playoffs unless they both play by the same player eligibility rules. That’s all. Regular season yes. Post season no.
I really , really like Ole Towne guy’s
Private vs Private playoffs
City vs City playoffs
County vs County playoffs
Good neighbor
January 11th, 2012
11:56 am
The Brick
Publics play publics in the playoffs
City’s play City’s in the play offs
Privates play Privates in the playoffs
The way I understand it, competing against teams in the post season that have the same eligibility rules as you is not running from the competition. It’s making it fair and consistent which is what the GHSA is paid to set up.
Why compare apples to oranages and keep claiming they are the same?
dan
January 11th, 2012
12:04 pm
Sour grapes from the public schools. If they were winning, this would have never occurred. Watch out Buford and Calhoun!
jvillebil
January 11th, 2012
12:05 pm
I have a question? If there is a child that lives in Savannah and is on the fringe of the school district for SCPS and takes his entrance test as an 8th grader and passes and his parents can afford to send him this school what would prohibit him from attending? Is there a waiting list? How long is it? I’m just curious. Is this true for other private schools? What are the requirements to send your child to a good Christian private school? 6 of my nieces and nephews went to Christian private schools and 8 went to public schools. All the schools both public and private seemed like good schools. 12 have either graduated or are still in college and 3.5 + GPA’s. The only two that didn’t finish went to private schools, but I don’t think they were ever college material anyway.
The Brick
January 11th, 2012
12:09 pm
Good neighbor:
I understand why people complain about with city schools getting kids that transfer in, but what some fail to see is that many counties have the same policies as many cities when it comes to allowing kids to attend that live out of district. Also some city’s don’t have any kids that live out of district so why punish them.
A solution for every school would be to count every kid that lives out of district as 6 (or whatever number is found to be fair) even if the student doesn’t play sports. If Gainesville has 50 out of district students their numbers go up by 300. If Buford has 100 out of district students their numbers go up by 600. If a county has 20 there numbers go up by 120. That would keep schools that get more playing in higher classification and schools that get less playing in lower classifications.
jokerswild
January 11th, 2012
12:29 pm
“I am struck by the cynicism regarding private school recruiting, which is an overblown myth. Their advantage lies in coaching and kids in the system longer.”
You are correct !, this is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. The public schools either cannot or are not willing to put in the time for individual one on one instruction for the players like the privates do. Private schools show up with 35 well trained players and outplay public schools with 60+ players. Unlike the public schools,the private schools do not field overweight, out of shape kids or kids that are clearly superior athletically but have a “me first” mentality; and refuse to be coached or execute a game plan. We can’t outrun this problem, we have to face it. The split system is not the solution, public schools need to trim teams down to only fit and dedicated players and teach football (every kid can’t be a football player just because he wants to). This has to start in elementary grades with school sponsored/controlled peewee leagues (this is how the private schools do it). In most rural systems, the kids come up through parks&rec football, coached by ex-high school players trying to re-live glory days;whereby they pick up bad habits and learn little or no fundamentals- playing “sand lot” ball. By the time they reach 8th grade a large percentage are essentially uncoachable, although they may have great athletic ability.
Learn from others
January 11th, 2012
12:55 pm
This is simple. NC, SC and VA have separate associations and with minor exceptions, they are not allowed to play each other. There is very little debate and the schools act like high schools and not small colleges with recruiting coordinators. My family moved to Atlanta 4 years ago and high school athletics are as corrupt as I have ever seen. I officiated football and basketball for 26 years and after seeing the illegal things that go on here, there was no way I would get involved. Split them and let kids play for the school in their attendance area…
GHSA Stripes
January 11th, 2012
1:30 pm
Lan Fan,
Landmark Christian? I enjoyed my time there for the game I was at. One Act is covered by GHSA so it should also be split.
Jeff has been listening to Boortz. 7 out of over 300 is hardly everyone getting a state championship.
Hmmmm, wow, I had not heard about that one
Sav'h dawg
January 11th, 2012
1:33 pm
@ dublin dawg, little man? This was not an issue when Lincoln and Charlton were winning titles every other year. I saw the team that Lincoln county fielded against savannah Christian. Their players were just as big and athletic as sc. They got outschemed for the third year in a row, sport.
Wondering
January 11th, 2012
2:03 pm
My kids went through public school until high school and then we sent them to a private school, not for sports but for the academics. ALL schools recruit to a degree. My kids went through the middle school that feeds into Milton and I can tell you that the most of the BB players on that team did not go to school with my kids. Everyone talks about how this effects football. What it will hurt is the minor sports, cross country, track, softball, golf, tennis etc. Most of the A schools, both public and private, can not field competitive teams in some of those sports or can not field teams at all. How does this effect the state races for cross country? They went from having 10 races in a day (one for each glass boys and girls) to having 14 races! I think GHSA just thought about football and did not take in account the other sports. Not every kid at the public and private schools play football, the majority play other sports.
Georgia votes to separate public, private schools | Varsity Now
January 11th, 2012
2:06 pm
[...] news coming out of Georgia yesterday as the GHSA (Georgia’s state athletic association) voted to separate public and private schools in its smallest classification. According to the article, there was concern about the smaller private schools’ ability to [...]
Good neighbor
January 11th, 2012
3:58 pm
The Brick
“Also some city’s don’t have any kids that live out of district so why punish them”
It’s not “punishment” to align privates vs privates, City’s vs City’s and Publics vs Publics come playoff time. How do you see that as “punishment”?
Claudia
January 11th, 2012
3:58 pm
Learn From Other:
“there was no way I would get involved”.
Shame on you!
DublinDawg
January 11th, 2012
4:04 pm
Sav’h dawg
“This was not an issue when Lincoln and Charlton were winning titles every other year”. It should have been if they encountered private or city schools in the playoffs. GHSA should have never allowed that to happen.
“I saw the team that Lincoln county fielded against savannah Christian. Their players were just as big and athletic as sc. They got outschemed for the third year in a row, sport”. Once again, the two should have only met in the regular season, not playoffs. Playoffs should be apples to apples. Regular season can remain apples to oranges.
observer
January 11th, 2012
5:05 pm
The answer has to be athlete redistribution.we can take good athletes from the teams with great programs and distribute them among the “less fortunate”-then everyone would have the same number of good athletes and things would be just wonderful.While we are at it it cant be fair that some have more booster money and better facilities so we need to address this also.
jvillebil
January 11th, 2012
5:08 pm
LOL Observer = CAN’T WE JUST ALL GET ALONG! Common man share the wealth. I know I was out there partying and drinking all summer while your guys were working out, running sprints and lifting weights, but give me a break send me an athlete or two bro. LOL
MGE
January 11th, 2012
5:19 pm
I don’t agree with the
Public Play Public
City Play City
Private Play Private.
1st Problem:
There are only 21 City School districts spread across the state ranging from A up to AAAAAA. How is that supposed to work. Could it wind up being Thomasville City (AA) vs Gainesville City (AAAAA) or Valdosta City (AAAAAA) vs Pelham City (A)???
Rockmart Needs a Coach
January 11th, 2012
5:25 pm
The GHSA has little use for private schools, they should ban them all. You want to be seperate, well be seperate.
Great idea. Now who’s whining like a baby ?
observer
January 11th, 2012
5:45 pm
MGE-you are right on!Too many of the whiners dont do any research as to numbers and the ramifications of “City vs City”.They are just so convinced that all city schools have an advantage that they are blind to how this would(or would not) work.If someone has this all figured out please present a brief outline of how this would work.
JWill
January 11th, 2012
5:50 pm
Schools with money resources public and private recruit. Anybody that thinks not is naive.In north Ga Darlington recruits sincr the 50 s, I was involved. In Bartow County, Cartersville wins every year. Why is that – coaching. I think not. Cass stating QB played for Cartersville. Just a coincidence-not. Buford and many city schoolos are packed with transfers. GHSA is gutless!
Private School Parent
January 11th, 2012
5:55 pm
Why did the chicken cross the road? To play with the public schools in Class A.
The reality is that there are a dozen or so schools (public AND private) that clearly manipulate the system and they ruin it for everyone else. You idiots that think ALL private schools cheat are wrong. This votes implies that, but it won’t change a thing.
The “public and private school cheaters” are now going to win championships in their respective divisions and nothing is going to change.
Frankly, I am stunned at how these so-called leaders can stand up and blatantly lie about their motives and their behavior. They should all be ashamed.
SHUT UP AND PLAY BALL
January 11th, 2012
7:33 pm
As a student this descision is just upsetting. Spliting private and public will make the football season playoffs one less game for us… one less game can mean a lot for a high school football player. Football is our lives and we wanna play all that we can, win or lose. Plus private schools arent the only ones guilty of recruiting. Just because 4 private schools were in the final 4 for the Class A Football playoffs doesn’t mean that public schools need to complain and quit. Did they even think about basketball, baseball, tennis, soccer, etc.? Those complaining about football may have just screwed it up for other sports.
Take for example Prince Avenue Christian, they made it to the final 4 beating 3 public schools, yet Prince doesn’t have a single recruit on there team. Then Prince had to face Savannah Christian who is stacked out with recruits and they got killed. But there not complaining… JUST SHUT UP AND PLAY BALL!!!!
nobody
January 11th, 2012
7:43 pm
“Looking behind the losses”…..I hope you are not a fair sample of private “christian” school opinion. If private schools want to play for a public school championship, just bite the bullet and opt to move up to Class AA… that’s what the original multiplier would have done anyway…
nobody
January 11th, 2012
7:45 pm
for what it is worth, the decision should apply to every facet of Class A competition, both athletic and academic…
nobody
January 11th, 2012
7:49 pm
actually, the situation is pretty hilarious….rwe are ight back where we started many years ago….private schools should just keep on recruiting and exercise their perogative to play up a classification and play for a championship….it should be the case in every classification
JB in Blakely
January 11th, 2012
7:56 pm
I agree with the decision, and judging from the vote total, it was probably the best thing. This has nothing to do with being sore losers and has everything to do with rules. The fact is, private schools had an advantage. Just like city schools have an advantage. I know a lot of coaches. I never met one who was scared to compete against anyone- as long as it was a level playing field.
The vote total proves that the members of the executive committee recognized that private schools had an advantage over public schools in class A. Hopefully in the next two years rules can be put in place that allow public and private schools to compete against one another for a championship.
That is my hope, anyway.
T
January 11th, 2012
8:03 pm
Hey JB, The only thing that this vote proved was that there are way more public schools that get to vote. Spin it all you want, the kids are the ones that lose here.
Private School Parent
January 11th, 2012
8:52 pm
Continuing to make the blanket statement that all private schools recruit for sports only shows your ignorance.
The schools that recruit should be playing in AA, but that should includes the public schools that will be DOMINATING the lowly public school league. Look at who drove this move and you will see the future state champions with very little competition.
Gordon Lee
January 11th, 2012
9:28 pm
Our team only has slow big ankle kids and weak skill players, it’s not fair that we have to play against any schoolsl(public or private) that has good players. This being said, we still want our kids to get a Trophy. Can’t we have a division for teams that are athletically challenged.
soccerref
January 11th, 2012
9:28 pm
Instead of pointing fingers and laying blame on people, a solution needs to be found that is actually fair to ALL schools, whether public, private, city, or county. Without ripping my head off, how about something like this. Remember, there are many colleges (especially the smaller ones) that do something similar.
First, all new schools start play at A. We all know that new schools, no matter the size struggle their first few years.
Second, schools that win their region move up to the next classification the following year. The team that finishes last drops down. Obviously, AAAAAA region winners can’t move up, nor can the A teams that finish last drop down.
The job of GHSA in this example would be to merely place those team affected in their regions. They would not have to decide which classification a school would be in.
It would need to be determined how to group the schools. By this, I mean whether a schools classification would be based on one thing, such as the football team’s success. It could be based on having extracurriculars grouped together based on the season in they are played (fall, winter, and spring). In this case, it is possible to have a football team playing AAAA, wrestling competing at AA, and track at AAA. The third option would be to classify each extracurricular based on each school’s finish. This may be too much to keep track of though.
The thing about doing classification this way is that over time, the playing fields level out. There is no other state in the country that does their classification this way, but personally, I am tired of following other states. I think we should set the standard and let others follow us.
Let me know what you think.
ScottS
January 11th, 2012
9:37 pm
MGA
Where playoffs are concerned, I too agree with the
Public Play Public
City Play City
Private Play Private.
“There are only 21 City School districts spread across the state ranging from A up to AAAAAA. How is that supposed to work. Could it wind up being Thomasville City (AA) vs Gainesville City (AAAAA) or Valdosta City (AAAAAA) vs Pelham City (A)???”
The 21 city schools can schedule any teams they want in the regular season. However, they should only be allowed to compete with schools that share their elligibility rules when it comes to the playoffs. In this case that would be other City schools.
ScottS
January 11th, 2012
9:53 pm
JWILL
The only public schools I have seen blatantly recruit are City schools. I have recently seen a few public schools doing this under their academic Magnet programs but do not know enough about this to comment.
I would like to hear from Dave Hunter (representing public schools like Brookwood), Dexter Wood (representing City schools like Buford and Marietta) and Alan Chadwick (representing private schools like Marist)
Stork
January 11th, 2012
10:55 pm
The small publics just admitted the private schools are better. Nevermind trying to make yourselves better. That’s why my kids are all Savannah Christian Raiders.
dawgma
January 12th, 2012
7:47 am
Typical GHSA – screw up the entire clasification system to pander to the little babies in class A only to backtarck their entire reason for reclasification with a 12th hour bandaid fix.
Private schools should be a separate group or play up at least one class (or more) like Marist. Buford in the biggest cheater team in Georgia bar none. Grow some stones Buford and move on up to 5A with Marist.
They should install the same playoff system in 6A where you have 2000 student schools competing against 3500-4000 student schools. Total and complete load of cr*p.
ScottS
January 12th, 2012
8:59 am
dawgma:
Buford is not a private school. They are a public city school that, like private schools, also have player elligibility advantages over public schools. Just not as many.
*City schools can get players from anywhere in the county where that city is the county seat.
*Public schools get players from their geographic school district
* Private schools can get players from anywhere in the state or USA for that matter.
Silver & Gold
January 12th, 2012
9:14 am
Stork:
I live in Atlanta but have been a high school football fan for over 45 years. In my opinion, the small publics just admitted private schools are better due to their superior student eligibilty requirements only.
I hope Lincoln County and Savannah Christian schedule each other during each others regular seasons from here on out. I am just happy that they will both be able to play schools in the play offs that share the same eligibilty requirements.
GHSA got this one right!
Now they need to address the public city vs public county school discrepancies.
Best wishes to you and yours at SC!
observer
January 12th, 2012
10:02 am
Soccerref:For a minute there I thought you were serious.Whew!—Dawgma-Marist does not play in AAAAA.
showboat
January 12th, 2012
10:11 am
So, here is the situation: now that we have split public and private in Class A, you want city split from public as well. I guess next you want metro atlanta split from this. Then you might want schools that have higher graduation levels broken from that. Seriously, there will ALWAYS be inequalities in football, and it has nothing to do private vs. public vs. city, nor recruiting vs getting waivers vs whatever. When I was in public school, some kids in the country were massive from working on the farms with their parents. And they killed the suburban schools every year. The city kids were also playing at a whole different league but back then there were fewer high schools in the city next door. Coaching creates inequalities. Parenting creates inequalities. Heck, nutrition and access to adequate training facilities creates inequalities. Attitude creates inequalities.
This change will only highlight the differences within public schools. It will highlight the differences in private schools as well. But it won’t make things better. Weaker football schools will now make the playoffs and likely be crushed by the dominant schools – and it won’t make anyone feel any better getting stomped 63-0. If you further break out schools, it will only exacerbate this – or even prevent a playoff due to not have 16 teams in the classification!
Right now, people are happy. But they won’t be next year. Longer drives between games will further hurt the financial situations for athletics in poorer schools – private AND public. Playoffs with meaningless early rounds will rob them of their significance. Championships will – at least initially – be snickered at because they don’t really prove anything.
The situation reminds me of the movie the Karate Kid, when the “kid” explains that unless he can compete in the final round, he won’t have balance because everyone would know that they they got the best of him. There won’t be balance in Class A because public schools got the best of private schools due to politics and not the actual sport. And as I read this, rural public schools will continue to try and subdivide the whole GHSA until certain teams are guaranteed a shot at the championship every year.
JimW
January 12th, 2012
10:17 am
Dogma:
Thanks to GHSA’s RECENT RULING, Private schools ARE NOW a separate group and DO NOT NEED TO play up at least one class (or more) like Marist (WHO IS NOT AAAAA BY THE WAY).
aND Buford is not a cheater or a private school. They are a “CITY” school in Gwinett County that gets to pull players from the entire county whereas each Gwinett County public school can only pull players from the small geographic school district the GHSA sets up for them.
Thus the reason that come playoff time,
Publics schools should play public schools to the Dome
City schools should play city schools to the Dome
Private schools should play private schools to the Dome
It’s really that simple.
jokerswild
January 12th, 2012
10:32 am
jokerswild
January 11th, 2012
12:29 pm
“I am struck by the cynicism regarding private school recruiting, which is an overblown myth. Their advantage lies in coaching and kids in the system longer.”
You are correct !, this is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. The public schools either cannot or are not willing to put in the time for individual one on one instruction for the players like the privates do. Private schools show up with 35 well trained players and outplay public schools with 60+ players. Unlike the public schools,the private schools do not field overweight, out of shape kids or kids that are clearly superior athletically but have a “me first” mentality; and refuse to be coached or execute a game plan. We can’t outrun this problem, we have to face it. The split system is not the solution, public schools need to trim teams down to only fit and dedicated players (every kid can’t be a football player just because he wants to)and TEACH FOOTBALL. This has to start in elementary grades with school sponsored/controlled peewee leagues (this is how the private schools do it). In most rural systems, the kids come up through parks&rec football, coached by ex-high school players trying to re-live glory days;whereby they pick up bad habits and learn little or no fundamentals- playing “sand lot” ball. By the time they reach 8th grade a large percentage are essentially uncoachable, although they may have great athletic ability.
bucket
January 12th, 2012
11:17 am
@ nobody – so if someone doesn’t agree with your opinion that makes them unchristian? If the state of Georgia is going to require me to pay school tax when I don’t use the public schools then why are they not allowing my kids to compete against public schools in the playoffs? The fact of the matter is that guys like Larry Campbell love to play private schools in the regular season because he knows he can beat everyone of them on his schedule. (Including the new ones he will find in 8-A.) He, and others like him, don’t want to have to play Savannah Christian in the playoffs. I can assure you that this issue is far from settled and the politicans in Georgia are going to have to get involved before it is over. You can’t take my tax money and then treat me and my children like second class citizens come playoff time. You mentioned the multiplier and I agree that it should be used. But if you think that would place most private schools in AA you are wrong. All public schools are not equal in Class A (Lincoln, Charlton, Clinch, etc) and all Private schools in Class A are not equal either. Some Privates use the GOAL scholarship program to attract kids who otherwise cannot pay and some don’t. Some recruit players and use student exchange programs and some don’t. Coach Chumley from Savannah Christian said it best when he said no one had a problem with them playing public schools as long as they were losing. If you are opposed to privates playing publics then where was the argument years ago? This entire debacle has transpired because the privates did something this year that would have probably never happened again – they placed 4 teams in the semi-finals and Lincoln got put out for the third year in a row by Savannah Christian.
bucket
January 12th, 2012
11:22 am
@ JT – if you think that no recruiting goes on in the public schools, then the jokes on you my friend.
jvillebil
January 12th, 2012
11:48 am
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but since I love Georgia High School Football I follow this story like everyone else. It seems to me that the public Class A schools have spoken. They were mostly happy for years when they didn’t play the private schools until they decided “hey lets try it.” Now it’s apparent they (or at least the top dogs) don’t like getting beat by private schools and so they want you to go home. The little (yapper dogs) class A schools know if the big dogs can’t win, then they certainly don’t have any chance at all. I do believe there are opportunities for the private schools to recuit, not saying they do, but if one is guilty then everyone else assumes they are all guilty by association. Thus it is planted in the minds of the public schools that they are no longer competing on a level playing field. Quite frankly they could probably care less what the private schools think now, because come playoff time, they are rid of them.
There were a bunch of country boys that would go to the river and swim and dive out the this tall tree on the banks of the river. At the end of the summer, they would always have a contest to see who was the end of the summer diving champ. One day a country boy invited his city cousin out. He grew up at the YMCA where they had diving platforms and coaches. Soon thereafter a few city boys would drive out with him and dive and hang out with the country boys. It became apparent that at the end of the summer the city boys wanted to compete in the annual event. Well country boys Billy, Johnny and Sam, some of the past country boy champs, knew they could be dethroned and all the local girls would be watching. So they got all their buddies together and decided the championship was for country boys only.
The moral of the story for the private schools, you can come swim in our hole and jump out of our tree but you ain’t diving for the championship against me!