Chris:

As you know, Manhattan High School consists of two campus facilities:

East Campus
901 Poyntz Ave.
Manhattan, KS 66502

and

West Campus
2100 Poyntz Ave.
Manhattan, KS 66502

If the Wichita school district followed the lead of the Manhattan school district and combined the enrollment of their campus facilities to form one, two, three, or four athletic programs, instead of the current seven public school programs, the results likely would be entirely different.

It would be interesting to determine how successful the Manhattan athletic programs would be if each campus facility formed their own athletic programs similar to Andover, Lawrence, and Salina, etc. With the talent pool diluted in all athletic programs to support an East and West high school program, it is much more difficult for either school to compete for a championship in either football or wrestling.

There have been years in the recent past when Wichita South and Wichita West, with their wrestling programs combined, would have seriously challenged for, if not won, the large school championship.

Based on past Manhattan enrollment figures, if the Manhattan school district followed the norm in Kansas and had athletic programs at each campus, with the reduced enrollment figures, the Manhattan schools would compete in the 5A classification and would likely have fared far worse against teams such as Arkansas City, Bishop Carroll and K. C. Turner.

While you are smugly bad mouthing other school district programs, remember Manhattan is competing with two high school campuses combined to increase the number of students with which to populate the team and increase the odds of success.