Cougar14.2

How long has it been since Nations actually called a play on a sideline? Do people in Dayton feel this is the best hire from an X and O standpoint or do they feel like this is the most comfortable hire for the school board? Interesting how one assistant is viewed as incompetent but the other is held in such high regard.

My thought is that East Texas ching-a-laid us by not including Nac somewhere out there. One of our districts is going to have about a 300 mile round trip on a Tuesday night. That would be a stiff district though, almost as tough as the Cypress or Klein/Spring districts down here.

Man, you can tell there's no football to talk about. Y'all are lucky Crosby lost in the second round . . . Again. I was just saying that stuff highlight motives for the actions of the young man. No way trying to justify any of it. I was thinking some background data would show why everybody doesn't view decision making through the same prism. My family is probably the perfect example. My mom and some of her brothers went to school on athletic scholarships and got degrees, they started a trend. Only two of the nine first cousins I have that went to school on some sort of athletic scholarship didn't graduate. Out of 22 of us 16 have at least have a bachelors degree, I assume the number will grow generationally. So not everyone needs sports to shake an environment but I'm telling you from being close to different situations it's the most efficient and realistic way to change course in some cases. I've seen the flip side too. I have a cousin and brother-in-law that were murdered and I have another cousin doing life. My wife is from the Dallas area, she has four maternal uncles. Two were murdered, the other two have life sentences. Other than her the only other person with a degree in her family is her cousin who played ball before blowing out his knee, he's a teacher now. They all come from the same type of areas, it's just that in those type places the opposite ends of the spectrum can literally be across the street from each other. It's a common reality, yet hard to wrap your mind around even in theory. As far as the education thing, let's be honest. Half the guys inside these refineries earning these six figure incomes can barely read, spell and punctuate at a high school level. A GED and some experience is all you need to make it these days. Half the time the foreman is making more than the engineer anyway. Education really isn't the issue, it's the proximity to bad choices that lead so many kids astray. People have to be realistic when they start talking about academic scholarships and college being attainable to all. One of those cousins I spoke of graduated Pre-Med in biology and is now a pharmacist in Liberty County, not even she qualified for a real academic scholarship. I guess you can attain it through financial aide and the accrual of massive sums of student loan debt though. Trade schools give you skills the majority of the time that are market dependent, I do agree they teach important skills though. I'm not saying the kids need athletics, I'm saying the truly motivated are going to thrive anyway. That's more than evident. My argument for the importance of athletics is geared towards kids like the article is about, not the "it's the only way out" argument some are trying to turn it into.

You don't have to buy it, I'm not trying to sell you on it. Nor am I making excuses or did I say it couldn't be done. As I stated before, only about 12% of the total US population is black yet 60% of the males incarcerated are black. That's what I mean by viewing survival differently in different places. That's not a coincidence the numbers look like that, it's a direct reflection of choices and opportunities. It's kind of like saying Native Americans have problems with alcoholism, then getting to actually go to indian reservations and finding out what the basis of the problem is. Before I saw it myself I was actually believing what Tom Daschle stood in front of my political science class saying, my opinions changed and I even vote democrat. If you've never had to live in the environment some of these kids come from then you'll never fully grasp it. It's kind of relative when you say "privilege" too. Obviously you were un-athletic but in every other instance of life I would be willing to bet you were more "privileged" than this kid was. Even in a case like Tony Brown being arrested at Alabama the decision he made for that to happen is probably one a kid from Bridge City doesn't make. Growing up in Beaumont you've probably seen the police pick with you for what you deem minor infractions. He probably saw the police being there as picking with him, similar to what may have happened to him or his buddies at home, and reacted accordingly. The BC kid has probably never had a run-in with the police other than a traffic violation and therefore would be more compliant. Yes kids make bonehead decisions, I'm just highlighting why in some places some of those dumb decisions get you stuck in the mud and others get you a prison sentence.

It's not worth it to you and I. Neither is walking into a crowded area with a suicide vest on to do harm to innocent people. It happens though. I doubt if you told him someone would be harmed he would even go. The way you look at survival is completely different than the way a minority youth in a poverty stricken urban area does. It doesn't make it right, it's just the way it is. I'm just trying to give you some substance behind the numbers you'll constantly rolled out on shows like O'Rielly and Hannity. The "Jones'" don't live in his neighborhood or go to school with him, I highly doubt he's ever seen them.

It's probably life in prison or death in the street if he talks. Pretty tough decision when all you were probably looking for is some money to buy shoes or clothes.

The kid could care less about the actual rims, it's the $500 he could sell them for to the guy up the street that they're after. It says this kid was the lookout while the others went it, meaning a statement as simple as "Hey, watch out while we hit this lick" is probably what's going to get him a life sentence. At Ike, where he went to school, probably 70% of kids qualify for free lunch. It's not a stretch to think he was in the same boat. In those types of households in can be hard to teach the value of hard work sometime, especially when the child has seen the parent/parents work hard and still be on section 8.

A realistic 5A split would probably put about 130 schools in each class and have a difference of 600 students. This year in the 5A-D2 playoffs Crosby could have literally added WOS' enrollment and players and still had about 100 less kids than RP. If you split 5A still only about 50% of teams would make the playoffs, technically 50% of the teams in 4A-D2 can make the playoffs with a 1-9 record. In 5A and 6A you're getting top 10 matchups in bi-district sometimes. Yes, a split would water down the 5A and 6A product some but if you're going to do the lower classes a solid then it needs to be done across the board, which is my argument.

That's exactly why athletics are so important in the minority communities, often times even stressed more than academics. I think that's highlighted by the fact that even though blacks are only about 12% of the US population they make up about 70% of NFL players and about 74% of NBA players. Athletics are often times the only realistic way some of these kids don't end up as a statistic on one of those steamers running across Fox later in life.

It's more than likely that the car is the reason they broke in in the first place. I assume the rims on the car the family mentioned are what we call 84's in the Houston area. People in the Houston area have been murdered over these rims in car jacking attempts since the mid-90's. If he had the money to buy the rims he probably also had several thousand dollars of other upgrades on/in the car. Believe it or not they'll take a fixed up Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac or Lincoln before they steal the Mercedes right next to it. They're much easier to strip and flip.

Splendora's nearest neighbor is New Caney, both town and school wise. Plus, Splendora High School is only 8 miles from Texan Drive stadium where they would actually play the games. It's over 20 miles for them to Moorehead where Caney Creek plays. It just wouldn't make a lot of sense to drive an hour to play Caney Creek when Splendora is 30 mins up the road.

If it goes like this, 73% of teams are already guaranteed a playoff spot before they even take the field for the '16 season. 69% of all teams in 4A-D2 would make the playoffs.

. . . And the district gets even tougher, smh. Porter has about 1,800 kids right now. They'll probably be right at 2,000 for the '18 realignment. He basically is getting the same type of athletes and enrollment he had at K-Park. Very good hire for Porter.

The way Stepp has it it's one 9 team district, four 8 team districts and three 7 team districts. I think they could go 19-5A: Willis, Caney Creek, Huntsville, Magnolia, Magnolia West, Waller, Tomball, Tomball Memorial 21-5A: Crosby, Dayton, Barbers Hill, Humble, K-Park, Splendora, New Caney, Porter 22-5A: Nederland, PNG, Ozen, Central, Lumberton, PAM, Vidor, Nacogdoches Keep all the other districts the same. Makes six 8 team districts and two 7 team districts. Switching Caney Creek and Splendora saves on travel for both schools. Nac's travel is equally bad for all three region 3 possibilities so why not let them play with other East Texas schools?

Crosby already takes charter buses to some of our playoff games. We probably would take a charter to East Tex too. Maybe if we win some more we can get some donated to take to every game.

Using Stepp's prediction it's 147 miles for them to Tomball and 166 miles to Waller. Nac is just in a bad spot next alignment. Going to be some rough Tuesday nights for them no matter where they go.

Man, if this were the case you might as well give La Porte two district titles and North Shore two free trips to the third round. I think Price probably gets King to the playoffs twice in this scenario too. I know North Shore used to play in the Pasadena district often but I really don't see a reason you would move them. Channelview and King are probably only 5 or 6 miles from North Shore.

I think you would probably switch Splendora and Caney Creek in that scenario. I hope the UIL doesn't do PLC like that again either, they should be allowed to go back to region 4 IMO. Those bi-district matchups between districts 17 & 18 would be ridiculous. It takes away the neighboring games but it does make sense for GP and Lee to play with the Galveston and Brazoria schools if that's how it goes.

Here's the article from where he got the $153K buyout. An excerpt from the article: "Despite never having coached a player who was recruited and signed by a NCAA Division I-A school, Price was 85-19 at BH after the 2006 season and had an overall winning percentage of 81.73, which at the time, ranked second all-time among Southeast Texas football coaches, according to Texas high school football historian Joe Lee Smith. Only Alex Durley, who led both Beaumont Hebert and Beaumont West Brook to state titles (and was 97-13-3, 87.17 percent), was better." [Hidden Content]

Price also went 10-0 in the regular season the first year BH came up to 4A/5A. Gage was also 9-0 and won a DC before he lost his last game of the regular season. I think the season with Gage was a bit of fools gold because he still had all of youngsters Price started the year before. I hate it for the district but I'm personally glad Price is gone to 6A, we had trouble with that guy at both BH and King.

I think it would be hard to find the money in a multi-school district that doesn't really have a high enrollment. The numbers I heard the BH guys at work throwing around are about 60k higher than what BISD started Suggs and Foreman at, I think Flannigan is still somewhere in the 80's too.

I just tried to look at the teams that finished in the top10 of the SETX rankings. Only Dayton, PNG and Ned didn't have any D1 kids. Crosby and North Shore which finished 1-2 both had 5,4 and 3 star prospects. I don't think you have to have those kids to win but I also don't think it's a coincidence Ned's best years recently was with a four star defensive tackle.

Those are just 5 star kids but you go off of that list you put up, over half of those guys made it to the NFL. Pretty accurate projections looking at 18 year olds. Your 5 star guys that usually flame out are qbs because there's really no metric to measure them coming out of high school. The people that rank these guys miss sometimes but if you look at this year's NFL draft half of the first round were four and five stars, the other half were three stars which is the most common ranking. The only 2 star drafted in the first round was Breshad Perriman who happened to be 6-2/212 and ran 4.24 at his pro day. Texas has 51 four star prospects in the '16 class, using your theory at least 45 of these kids will flame out in college which I just don't see being the case. Instead you'll probably get at least 10 of these kids make it to the NFL. [Hidden Content]

Katy is affluent like Allen is affluent, all the kids that go to Allen wouldn't fit in at the other school in Allen which is Lovejoy if you know what I'm saying without going into depth. At one point North Shore didn't lose a regular season game for 8 years straight because of the talent they had, even this year Manvel, Trinity and Westfield which they lost to were all equally as talented but it just wasn't their year. If you have the four and five star kids at the right positions there's no replacement for it, not even money and coaching as you saw at the 4A-D1 title games and up this past year. Enrollment and high level recruits might not guarantee titles every year, especially when other teams can match it given years, but it does make you a perennial powerhouse.