till then I will long for the day when every team in Indiana had a fighting chance to be Cinderella and everyonce in a while Goliath got kicked to the curb,.
Borna, do I take it from this that you prefer the one division setup that Indiana used to have? Just curious.
Till the day I die ........Anyone Anywhere Anytime was the mantra I grew up with. Did not matter how big or small you still got to play the game. One of the metaphors for life that basketball teaches.
I think prefer is a rather weak word when my bunch of friends starts talking about the tourney. But then Iam sure ring sales and trophies/plaques etc are bolstered by the addition of each additional class or division.
This is an unusual day. I win a 10-1 odds bet with Alan. He pays off. And, I agree with the sentiments of both Al and borna. All I can say is, Old Guys Rule! I wish the OHSAA would adopted the everyone in the same tourney philosophy.
You'd render some of the proudest and most traditional small-school programs in the state impotent. Their programs would become fish bait for O.J. Mayo and Bill Walker and LeBron James.
Take a look at Ohio's all-time win list. Most of them rendered too small to compete for a title if you go to one division.
I can simply speak to four of the top 28 teams: Archbold, Delphos St. John's, Ottoville, and St. Henry.
All of them proud traditions. Rabid fan bases. All of them would be out by the district level every year unless they had a senior class to end all senior classes. Popularity of the sport would plummet at all of those corner stone programs.
I can't imagine how differently my view towards basketball would have been had I grown up in a town where we were bounced out in the district instead of making runs to state or the regional on a yearly basis. We lived for those March nights. Taking them away would have taken away a part of my high school experience. Going to St. John Arena and the Schott as a schoolkid and high schooler were town-changing when only 3,000 or 4,000 people lived in a community.
As sad and straight out of a Bruce Springsteen song it might sound -- I can remember a game from 1996 in Columbus like it was yesterday and I don't even really care about high school sports anymore. But I remember that game.
Those Division I schools forget about their titles the moment the trophy gets put in the case.
I would reluctantly agree with getting down to three divisions again. But one? No way in hell someone in Division IV or Division III should be playing LaSalle or Moeller or Garfield Heights.
I know we'd like to think a Division IV school could do it and it'd be great the once every 100 years they did. But why destroy small-town basketball for that remote hope for a one-in-a-million thrill?
Last Edited: 3/14/2011 8:51:24 PM by Brian Smith (No, not that one)