Here is my take on this. High school ball is basically irrelevant today. For those who live in rural communities like Athens County, Scioto County, Noble County and the like, it's cheap entertainment on a Friday night to support the local kids and relive the glory days but when is the last time Bobby Knight showed up in your gym to see Damon Bailey. Those days are long gone. It's now about AAU summer tournaments with for hire players starting at the age of 12. The real college teams play during prime time not during oatmeal time. The very little money we get from TV isn't worth prostituting the program so a coach can say we played on TV x number of times last year. One of these days an AD will have the nerve to say, we ain't doing this any more.
wOW
Just Wow
HIgh School sports in this state ...including football are still the things that grade schoolers attend and grab autographs from the local heroes and where college coaches and assistants show up during open recruiting periods.
I went to several games in Ohio this year where the gym was packed to see teams like Bloom Carrol or Pick Central play.....and I saw very few ex hippie era balding fat men reliving their glory days. I saw pep bands and cheerleaders doing the same things we did and had to stand at several games because there were no seats left in the lower or upper bowls.
With regard to recruiting, I do not disagree that the summer tourneys are huge in the process but I am not saying HS ball is irrelevant as I still see Brad Stevens, TOm Crean, and a slew of assts at local games, I know Rhodes still heads out on thursday and heads for places like Baltimore, Va,, NY, Ohio, from PGH and gets back way late on Friday night after a game where he was looking at kids seen in the summmer that needs to be seen in their hometown setting. FYI you are a little out of touch with regrd to recruiting. Head Coaches not named Crean, Stevens or Groce rarely are directly involved in teh recruiting process. It is done by and large by the assts. and has been for a decode plus.
As for who plays on Friday....usually it is pretty difficult to find a game on Friday unless you are a fan of the Horizon league. Very few colleges in Indiana are dumb enough to set time opposite local HS teams even to the point where they will avoid a saturday night game if the local tema is playing. I dont see a ton of Friday offerings on First Row, ESPN or the likes as opposed to Saturday or weeknights.
Pronouncing HS sports as dead just tells me you have crossed that barrier from involved and aware to throwing out opinions from the easy chair. Feet on the ground say that while waning and competing for an ever shrinking peice of the dixcretionary entertainment dollar communities still get out and support their local teams....especially if they are winning. HS sports are sitll one of the best entertainment dollars you will ever spend. Games for the sake of the sport. SOrry ALan, I usually just pass over most of your stuff these days but my weekly experience in plaecs from urban, Suburban and rural Indiana, Illinois and Ohio are in oppostion to what I see standing on an end line looking for a seat most nights. .