3 games & 3 losses - could this be another 2008 when the three schools won a total of 8 games? Both Central and North held substantial half-time leads on Friday then totally collapsed and gave the games away. South played a formidable opponent but mis-fired on numerous scoring opportunities in the Red Zone according to those in attendance. Early season jitters? Coaching mistakes? Westerville kids don't know how to win?

I would have to agree with you on "Westerville kids do not know how to win", particularly for Central. They gave that game away against Big Walnut in the second half by turning the ball over multiple times which directly lead to 2 TD's. Central has yet to truly taste what success is. At this level, playing like and knowing you are a champion can take you very far and overcome a lot of other issues. I think Magistro will ge them there, it will take a little time.

Overall, I still think adding the third school has hurt Westerville schools in all sports. My understanding is there is no direct feeder system from the middle schools so the kids are running different systems going into high school. What's more, the talent pool is diluted.

Little Danny;465944 wrote:I would have to agree with you on "Westerville kids do not know how to win", particularly for Central. They gave that game away against Big Walnut in the second half by turning the ball over multiple times which directly lead to 2 TD's. Central has yet to truly taste what success is. At this level, playing like and knowing you are a champion can take you very far and overcome a lot of other issues. I think Magistro will ge them there, it will take a little time.

Overall, I still think adding the third school has hurt Westerville schools in all sports. My understanding is there is no direct feeder system from the middle schools so the kids are running different systems going into high school. What's more, the talent pool is diluted.

How are the MSs set up? Don't they go to certain HSs.
Wouldn't that allow you to set up the coaching philosophies in MS.

My understanding is that there are no dedicated MS's. Westerville sends the kids to either of the three high schools in an effort to balance racial and economic diversity for the most part, although the better athletes do seem to end up at South. All three of the high schools run different offensive and defensive schemes so there is no continuity when they get to high school.

yes, no feeder schools and no control of middle school program as far as what they run or who they hire as coaches. It is so bad that a highschool may not get one quarterback from any of the middle schools. Basically you are starting from scratch every year when it comes to teaching your system. I also think South will be fine this year. Need to do away with the turnover's. Five To's and 7 or 8 key penalties did not help the cause. Replacing 17 starters is not easy.

Little Danny;465982 wrote:My understanding is that there are no dedicated MS's. Westerville sends the kids to either of the three high schools in an effort to balance racial and economic diversity for the most part, although the better athletes do seem to end up at South. All three of the high schools run different offensive and defensive schemes so there is no continuity when they get to high school.

This is exactly right. There is a strong desire to keep the high schools as racially and economically diverse as possible so each middle school sends kids to each high school (not to mention pre-frosh open enrollment). Typically, Blendon mainly goes to South, Heritage mainly goes to North and Genoa mainly goes to Central, but there are a great number of exceptions to that. Also, Walnut Springs MS sends them everywhere as they are not a direct feed to any HS. There has been talk over the years of making Walnut a 6th Grade school and then having the other three be direct feeders to their respective high schools, but I don't think it's ever gotten past the talking stage. I believe it does put Westerville at a disadvantage in terms of sports for exactly these reasons.

I wasn't going to post on here, but since zam did...

You're welcome.

Good luck to 2 out of 3 this coming Friday night. (If you know what I mean!?!)

zambrown;466225 wrote:This is exactly right. There is a strong desire to keep the high schools as racially and economically diverse as possible so each middle school sends kids to each high school (not to mention pre-frosh open enrollment). Typically, Blendon mainly goes to South, Heritage mainly goes to North and Genoa mainly goes to Central, but there are a great number of exceptions to that.

Zam - am I correct in thinking that the Westerville SD has an exceptionally wide range of income levels? The south end (down Cleveland Avenue all the way to Morse Road) is a severely disadvantaged area - while the DelCo portion of the district has large clocks blocks of $350K-plus McMansions. That may be they're so concerned with spreading the attendance around.

I know Hilliard worked VERY hard to accomplish this, but we didn't have quite the range that W-ville had to contend with.

^^^
Yes because of the idiotic Win-Win Proposition signed between C-bus and W-ville back in the early 90's...folks who actually work for a living have to send their kids to school with kids from Somalia who could care less about their school or community. Wait...did this thread just bleed over into the Political Forum? Whatever...W-ville SD is in trouble both academically and athletically, and if the market was any better I'd moved out of there 3 yrs ago.

Cat Food Flambe';466515 wrote:Zam - am I correct in thinking that the Westerville SD has an exceptionally wide range of income levels? The south end (down Cleveland Avenue all the way to Morse Road) is a severely disadvantaged area - while the DelCo portion of the district has large clocks blocks of $350K-plus McMansions. That may be they're so concerned with spreading the attendance around.

I know Hilliard worked VERY hard to accomplish this, but we didn't have quite the range that W-ville had to contend with.

True about the Hilliards.
They split the 6 or 7 section 8 housing unitts up equally between all the schools. They supposedly tried to split the affluent areas evenly too.
I'm not convinced there wasn't some backroom meetings ala Friday Night Lights style going on, but hey it is what it is.
What they did do well was get the 3 MSs feeding directly 100% into their respective HSs. Now the Coaching staffs can install their philosophies.
In the past Weaver mainly fed into Davidson and ran the Brian White option. Heritage was mainly fed into Darby with Memorial split between the 2 but with more going to Darby. This lead to a political issue when the Darby coach tried to install his philosophies at Heritage because the Memorial kids were being put to a disadvantage when they became Frosh at Darby so they wouldn't allow it.
Now it is all on the same page and we should yield some positive results in a couple of yrs.

Zam - am I correct in thinking that the Westerville SD has an exceptionally wide range of income levels? The south end (down Cleveland Avenue all the way to Morse Road) is a severely disadvantaged area - while the DelCo portion of the district has large clocks blocks of $350K-plus McMansions. That may be they're so concerned with spreading the attendance around.

CFF - yes this is very true. The area you mention plus some apartments at Shrock & Karl that were annexed to Westerville schools years ago would be one end of the spectrum with Medallion and Highland Lakes, etc. making up the other end of the spectrum. In between, there are many average middle class neighborhoods as well. It does make things a bit more complicated, I'm sure. In terms of dividing fairly, I think the SD tried very hard to do the right thing, but then allowing open enrollment somewhat negates their intentions. If you excel at football, then before freshman year you petition to open enroll at South (or indicate that you are going to participate in the IB program). Same thing with wrestling at North.

W-ville SD is in trouble both academically and athletically

I couldn't disagree more academically. Westerville schools are rated very high and, in fact, North, South and Central were all ranked (with only about 30 other HSs in Ohio) in a recent national ranking regarding academic excellence. I love Westerville schools and applaud the services that have been available to us through the schools, so in NO way do I post to criticize the District academically. The teachers and administrators that I have dealt with over the years have all been dedicated to the betterment of the students and I can't think of a single one who was unresponsive to any questions or concerns I may have had. Athletically, I do agree that we have positioned ourselves at a disadvantage compared to other multi-school districts.

This really sounds like a bitching sessions! Where was this last year when South went to the playoffs. Or when South and Central was doing so well in basketball last year? North lost to Kilbourne suck it up and prepare for Groveport! South needs to worry about Coffman because 0-2 in region 3 does not look good and Central lost to Big Walnut who is always making noise and made an appearance in the State Title game a few years back.