That is exactly right, Will. As I posted earlier the great programs like the Bishop Miege girls volleyball and basketball programs would have been winning over the last thirty or more years no matter what division in Kansas that they would have been in and that is due in a large part to the great coaches that those programs have had in those years Gwen Pike and Terry English. I would think that the area girls basketball and volleyball coaches would agree with my assessment. As I also said before the Aquinas soccer teams will be successful no matter what division they are in. I am pretty confident that the 6A soccer teams who have to face those Aquinas soccer teams would prefer that Aquinas stay in 5A. But these private school team long term success stories are no different than some public school teams with similiar long term success records. I believe Coach Van Rose of SM Northwest boys and girls cross country has something like 31 state titles in 40 years. Is that long enough for a public school success record for some of you who want to say that public school success stories never seem to last as long as private school success records? The SM East boys swimming and diving coach has been there a long time and has numerous state titles. Hutchinson football had been at a very low point for a long time untill their current coach came in 1998 and turned the program around. Great coaches make a difference. They still need the athletes but without a doubt great coaches are a very big factor. All coaches are not the same in ability. Just as there can be great athletes there can also be great coaches. There are not a lot of Romero Cotton level athletes just as there are not a lot of Van Rose type coaches.

Do I think coaching differences are the only reason for the differences in high school teams success? No, there are other things too like athletic talent, tradition, parental involvement, and community spirit, etc. . I do not claim there is a perfectly level playing field out there. But at what lengths are we supposed to go to level the playing field out? It has been posted on this topic now that the teams in KCK are really not on a level playing field with the Blue Valley kids. I believe the reason had something to do with family income levels and possibly parental involvement. So would that would be the next thing we need to handicap within the public schools (income and parental involvement diffences between schools)? Or maybe we need to be sports specific and make the SM Northwest cross country team start an extra quarter of a mile or so behind the rest? I mean where do you stop in trying to even the playing field out?

We have already tried to level it out in coaching differences by not allowing coaches to do any off season coaching during the school year. We also try to level out the coaching differences in building a program by not allowing the coaches to participate in a youth program in their sport. So we end up not allowing a coach who wants to work harder than the next coach to build a strong sports program. I know the rationale is that we are protecting the kids from an overzealous coach but sometimes I wonder who really are protecting because rules could be put in place and enforced to protect for an overzealous coach. I personally do not expect a coach to have to work extra by having off season workouts for his team or have to build a program by supervising a youth team in his sport but I do not think we should prevent a coach who wants to do that the extra work to build a strong program. In our sport of wrestling in my opinion one of the most important things we need to get changed is the restriction that is currently in place that does not allow our high school wrestling coaches to coach their own wrestlers freestyle and greco until the summer. We need to get that changed. In my opinion it should be accepted because the olympic styles are a different sport than our high school folkstyle.