Catholics dominate high school football playoffs

[Charger440RDN]

It's playoff time here in Illinois for high school football. We have 8 classes and 8 different champions, classes 1A through 8A and I believe last year several class championships were won by catholic power house schools. This happens every year and I believe it's because they can recruit and the public schools can't. A catholic school here can play aganst the best undefeated public school, in the title game and win 55-0 and make it look easy. 

The same teams win every year such as Joliet Catholic, Chicago Mount Carmel (where Donovan McNabb played), Providence Catholic and these teams have 90 players on their rosters while public school teams have 45 players. Do catholic schools dominate football in most other states, or is it just here in Illinois?

[68X426]

I can speak for Ohio and California. Yes. For about 100 years now.

[Charger RT]

In the part of Florida I moved to baptist seem to be the majority so there aren't many catholic schools compared to where I come from up north. So to answer your question I would have to say no for here. They do take there high school football seriuos here. We are about 100 miles from Tampa and one of Tampas TV stations go to the friday night games and they show clips on the news every friday. That never happened up north.
Tim

[chargerboy69]

Our Catholic schools here in NE Indiana are very good, and our schools here do not "recruit".  A few of our local public high schools have around 3000 students.  Where our Catholic schools have less than a third of that.  So I would think the public school should have the advantage here locally.

As a side note, my wife was a Catholic school girl.  I have to give it up to the person who came up with the uniforms.   

[BrianShaughnessy]

   There's 1 catholic HS around here that's usually on the verge of closing....   A lot of kids that got expelled from public school aside from the uppity folk.  

  Way back when,  we'd go back around the school to find out the final score so we had something to tell our parents when we finally got home on Friday night.   I had a 69 Charger...  No way I wanted to hang there when I could be cruising.

[The70RT]

Yes, ours in Topeka almost always have a better record then the three high schools in town.

[Charger440RDN]

The PUBLICS VS CATHOLICS has been a big debate here for a while. Here in Illinois most of the Catholic schools are private schools that are not cheap to attend and they can recruit players from all over the country if they want just like college. It's just unfair to the public schools who can only use the players in their districts. 

[moparstuart]

happens here in the kansas city area too.  They can get both kansas and missouri players . 

[Ponch ®]

Recruiting does give them an advantage, but it's really funding and related factors (such as better facilities, the ability to hire better coaches, specialized trainers,  etc) that help them most. Here in Ca the catholic/private schools like Mater Dei (Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, Mark Sanchez, and current USC starter Matt Barkley all went there) and Oaks Christian (where Will Smith, Joe Montana, and Wayne Gretzky's kids all play on the same team) tend to dominate, but there are some public schools (usually in relatively well off areas) that can compete with them and do beat them.

Look at it another way - if you got enough money to send your kid to play ball at a private school that charges $10-20K in tuition or to live in an area where the public school is almost like a private school, odds are that you've been paying for your kid to play on expensive club teams and go to all sorts of sports camps since he/she could walk. He's probably going to be better prepared to play than a kid that just walks on to the team and has never played the sport before at all or in an organized manner, which is true in most cases at the public/urban school level.

There's always the exception to the rule, like Long Beach Poly, which is a public school in an urban area and consistently beats the private/suburb schools, but even then it's one of those schools where athletes will somehow find a way to transfer in by using a friend's or relative's address, etc to play for it, because they know it's a good program.

Of course, money can only buy you so many things - and athletic ability and innate talent aren't among them. Which is why in more "egalitarian" and accessible sports like basketball - even the worst and poorest of neighborhoods have a court somewhere - the competition between public/private schoos is a lot more even. In some cases, the public schools dominate (the school I went to wins the state championship every couple of years).  

[Charger440RDN]

The only public school exception here in Illinois was East Saint Louis Sr high school back in the 1980's. A public school in an urban run down area with a high murder rate/crime rate. East st Louis had old ragedy uniforms, a run down football field, poor facilities. (Former Dolphins/bears linebacker Bryan Cox played there) This team would go up to the Chicago area in the playoffs and destroy any team in their way. That included the catholic schools and the large public schools in the wealthy Chicago suburbs.
I would have to say this team did it all on talent alone especially being a public school coming out of a hell hole like East St. Louis, IL with no financial support. Other than East St. Louis the Catholics are dominant every year in Illinois.

[BLUE68RT4ME]

I grew up in South Dakota.  There are simply few schools of any sort there!     There were 21 kids in my graduating class.

We have open enrollment though, and that helped in many ways.  Some kids didn't do well in the bigger schools so they would come to small schools like ours and get more attention.  Some of us small towners got more opportunities by going to the bigger schools.  There are a few Catholic high schools in the state, but mostly elementary and middle school.

I think the open enrollment helps around here, and it would in larger areas like Chicago and the like.  Not only in keeping certain schools for being 100% dominant but also helping parents get their kids into schools that are a better fit without having to move.  That's my 

I never grew up going to Catholic schools, but after moving to Minneapolis and seeing what I did while studying some public education policies in college, I think I'd go Catholic or private if I could swing it.  Yikes!  lol!