My Recent Comments

• Kyle, it was my understanding that the computer was going to determine the smaller sections, or "regions", with no regard to competitive balance or attempts by the AIA to alter what the computer had done. Based on your review of the proposal and the meeting, is that inaccurate. Your story seems to suggest that the committee can put together the regions without regard for the computers input. Also, I found the assessment curious that travel will increase 30% when the Divisions are not even finalized yet pending the appeal up or down of schools to different divisions. Then, the possible appeal of section placement. I wonder how they are already putting proposed schedules together when Divisions and the new sections or "regions" are not finalized?
  7 months ago
• Bryophy did everything right? Does that include sending Westwoods quarterback to the hospital on what was likely to be the last play of the game?
  7 months ago
• I'm not impacted by this, but someone should look into whether the Board properly complied with A.R.S. 15-341(A)(33) with respect to the noticing procedures for school closures. Often, boards fail to comply when closing schools.
  7 months ago
• Mark, while the chance to appeal may bring hope to some programs, including Westwoods, the AIA has simply avoided the tougher, and more needed reform, of looking in total at what makes schools competitive in the first place. Rather than putting the burden on schools (read coaches and AD's) to petition down, the entire high school sports landscape would be better off with a system of Division assignment that actually makes some effort to form competitive Divisions and Sections in the first instance. For example, the entire underlying philosophy of Division assignment is based on enrollment ONLY. The premise here is that athletes are equally distributed among the population. Therefore, equal enrollments should produce approximately the same number of athletes per school. However, in the age of open enrollment and lax transfer and recruitment enforecement, if 5-10 students move from one school boundary to another, in Division 1 football that is tantamount to having 250-500 fewer enrolled students. The AIA clearly recognizes at least some of the factors that are relevant to competitive strength in the appeals factors. THey simply don't have the fortitude yet to tackle the much larger issue of really trying to achieve competitive balance. For example, by looking at last year's Division 1 football stats and comparing enrollment, roster size, and number of kids on free and reduced lunch at each Division 1 school, that enrollment appears the least correlated with winning. Roster size and socioeconomics are much more closely correlated.
  7 months ago
• Nice article. It really captured what happened on the field. I was proud of Westwood. Moral victories don't mean much, but I am not surprised to hear DV wasn't happy. The score sometimes doesn't tell the entire story. If you looked at the size of the lines, both offensive and defensive for DV, it was a total mismatch. Mikey Egger was really tough in the pocket and took a lot of shots. On both of those TD passes he held on till the last moment for Rae to come open, delivered a strike, and then took a shot from one or more DV players.
  8 months ago