Africentric?

[Oliver24]

Can someone explain to me why a team like this is allowed in the OHSAA? Not one kid on their team went to school there as a 1st grader. How is a team comprised of local kids supposed to compete with that? Quite honestly, they can recruit from anywhere in the world?

They probably have nice kids on their team, but AAU and club produced teams don't really belong in the OHSAA tournament. Sadly, these kind of teams have been allowed to prosper in our current OHSAA.

 

[The Dock]

Sadly, these kind of teams have been allowed to prosper in our current OHSAA.

What do you mean "these kind of teams???" You mean schools?

Can someone explain to me why a team like this is allowed in the OHSAA? Not one kid on their team went to school there as a 1st grader.

Hmm... pretty sure that's not a requirement.

 

[Oliver24]

What do you mean "these kind of teams???" You mean schools?


Hmm... pretty sure that's not a requirement.

They have boundless recruiting and enrollment capabilities. Their basketball programs are not normal high school programs. For a school that has only existed for a short time, they have won an unusually high amount of state championships. They really don't belong in the OHSAA.

I am sure they have nice hard working kids. Its how they are set up that I have a big problem with. No normal D4 or D3 high school can compete with it year in and year out. They belong in a prep only league.

 

[BigK72]

It’s a K-12 school...

It’s also part of Columbus City Schools. Correct me if I’m wrong but unless CCS allows open enrollment, they aren’t pulling outside the city. It’s no different than any other big public district. Athletes that are better football players enroll in School A. Basketball go to School B. Baseball go to School C....

 

[Oliver24]

It’s a K-12 school...

It’s also part of Columbus City Schools. Correct me if I’m wrong but unless CCS allows open enrollment, they aren’t pulling outside the city. It’s no different than any other big public district. Athletes that are better football players enroll in School A. Basketball go to School B. Baseball go to School C....

Trust me, it’s different. School district lines mean very little and are easily side-stepped for those who so desire. It’s the AAU/Lebron mentality of stacking teams to win. It’s cheating the game of basketball IMO.

 

[eastisbest]

Same school from K to 12 may work in some rural towns but that's a rare thing in the city I'd believe. Asking a lot there fella.

 

[BigK72]

Trust me, it’s different. School district lines mean very little and are easily side-stepped for those who so desire. It’s the AAU/Lebron mentality of stacking teams to win. It’s cheating the game of basketball IMO.

It’s no different than any other large urban district.
In my experience...

Dayton Public; historically, the most athletic kids went to Dunbar. I think it’s changed some obviously but you get the point.

I believe in Toledo, most of the good girl basketball players went to Scott or Rogers (I can’t remember). It happens with inner district open enrollment. To sit here and say Africentric is an AAU school is just dumb. Do a lot of girl hoopers from Columbus City wind up there? Sure. But they’re not pulling from Greater Central Ohio.

 

[eastisbest]

I believe in Toledo, most of the good girl basketball players went to Scott or Rogers (I can’t remember). It happens with inner district open enrollment. To sit here and say Africentric is an AAU school is just dumb. Do a lot of girl hoopers from Columbus City wind up there? Sure. But they’re not pulling from Greater Central Ohio.

They really followed a coach. Coach was at a feeder for Start (and Notre Dame). Both really good. Start coach retired, feeder coach took a position at Rogers, butt-load of talent went out to the cabbage patches. That's a generality but explains how Rogers came on the scene. Toledo has been strong the last 15 years ago. Before that it was mostly Central Catholic. Then Start came into play, then Waite. Notre Dame lurked as did one of the teams in Sylvania. Northview I believe. Now it's pretty much just Notre Dame. A lot did come out of the feeder school neighborhood but not enough to feed all the teams. Someone must have been doing something at the lower levels to develop talent.

It would be interesting to explore that history in more detail. Someone is responsible for Toledo suddenly having that depth of girl's talent Find them and blame them!

 

[Oliver24]

To sit here and say Africentric is an AAU school is just dumb. Do a lot of girl hoopers from Columbus City wind up there? Sure.

It is different... because AFC rose out of nowhere. That doesn’t happen by accident. My point is they have an AAU mentality. Kids don’t magically go to other schools without someone persuading them. There is no doubt in my mind they are recruiting kids and getting them early via the camp circuits. Schools like them are hurting basketball. It has essentially killed the attendance at the recent state tournaments because people don’t want to watch manufactured All Star teams.

 

[redfox90]

Can someone explain to me why a team like this is allowed in the OHSAA? Not one kid on their team went to school there as a 1st grader. How is a team comprised of local kids supposed to compete with that? Quite honestly, they can recruit from anywhere in the world.

Total joke. OHSAA should be ashamed of itself for allowing this non-sense. They probably have nice kids on their team, but AAU and club teams don't really belong in the OHSAA tournament. Sadly, these kind of teams have been allowed to prosper in our current OHSAA.

There's no way you just found out about Africentric, unless you're a Cardinton-Lincoln fan or maybe a Willard fan ?

 

[Oliver24]

There's no way you just found out about Africentric, unless you're a Cardinton-Lincoln fan or maybe a Willard fan ?

No, their success is relatively recent from a historical standpoint.

 

[redfox90]

No, their success is relatively recent from a historical standpoint.

Right but they are a relatively new school, and with that all success and area to draw from or Lottery from (whatever they want to call it) it's easy to see why kids would want to be in the program.

 

[BigK72]

It is different... because AFC rose out of nowhere. That doesn’t happen by accident. My point is they have an AAU mentality. Kids don’t magically go to other schools without someone persuading them. There is no doubt in my mind they are recruiting kids and getting them early via the camp circuits. Schools like them are hurting basketball. It has essentially killed the attendance at the recent state tournaments because people don’t want to watch manufactured All Star teams.

What you're saying is nothing new

People have been accusing the private schools for years of recruiting. Massillon has been accused of recruiting in football for years. With open enrollment, you see kids transferring schools.

It'd be interesting to find out how many of these kids transferred in in 7th,8th,9th.. grade compared to how many of them have been attending the K-12 school since elementary. My guess is your school is DIII and probably in their bracket somewhere

 

[nwwarrior09]

Africentric as a selective enrollment "early college" high school has only existed for maybe 20 years. They definitely haven't risen out of nowhere. They've been good for most if not just about all of their existence, and they had 3-4 state championships before this current run of dominance started 4-5 years ago.

I could be mistaken about this, but I believe that in most large urban districts in Ohio the newer concept schools that are "early college", "STEM", etc. typically don't have their own sports teams and the kids compete for their local public while attending the concept school. Africentric is an exception to that. In Toledo, a kid that attends the early college high school would be playing basketball for their neighborhood school such as Start.

Since Africentric is Pre-K through 12 now, I assume they have rolling selective enrollment through at least 9th or 10th grade? Anyone have any clue how their system works?

 

[nwwarrior09]

State tournament attendance has been going down the toilet for years. In that regard, it's far from being an Africentric problem. That's an issue of selective enrollment schools in the bigger cities, whether it's a school like Africentric or a Catholic school such as VASJ, shouldn't be competing in D3 and D4 against small town and rural schools that don't have nearly the potential pull of prospective students.

That's a different discussion, and it's a discussion that the current competitive balance formula hasn't done much to resolve the pre-existing problems. For the example of this thread, all that competitive balance seemed to achieve in the Central district is moving the power players that have different enrollment dynamics out of D4 and to D3 to play against similar small town and rural schools that are slightly larger than the ones they were playing in D4. I don't know that that issue has a good resolution.

 

[BigK72]

Africentric as a selective enrollment "early college" high school has only existed for maybe 20 years. They definitely haven't risen out of nowhere. They've been good for most if not just about all of their existence, and they had 3-4 state championships before this current run of dominance started 4-5 years ago.

I could be mistaken about this, but I believe that in most large urban districts in Ohio the newer concept schools that are "early college", "STEM", etc. typically don't have their own sports teams and the kids compete for their local public while attending the concept school. Africentric is an exception to that. In Toledo, a kid that attends the early college high school would be playing basketball for their neighborhood school such as Start.

Since Africentric is Pre-K through 12 now, I assume they have rolling selective enrollment through at least 9th or 10th grade? Anyone have any clue how their system works?

That's a good point. In Dayton, they have their own vocational school and performing arts school, but they each have their own sports team. There is a STEM school(I forget the name of it), but I don't believe they have their own athletics.

 

[nwwarrior09]

That's a good point. In Dayton, they have their own vocational school and performing arts school, but they each have their own sports team. There is a STEM school(I forget the name of it), but I don't believe they have their own athletics.

On this note, at some point in the last 10-15 years Dunbar got a rebrand as an "early college" high school. I'd presume they have some degree of selective enrollment within DPS inner-district open enrollment.

There is a Dayton Early College Academy (DECA), which is a charter school that I don't believe has any athletics.

 

[BigK72]

On this note, at some point in the last 10-15 years Dunbar got a rebrand as an "early college" high school. I'd presume they have some degree of selective enrollment within DPS inner-district open enrollment.

There is a Dayton Early College Academy (DECA), which is a charter school that I don't believe has any athletics.

You are correct about DECA.

I think the following schools are neighborhood schools in Dayton (I could be wrong)
Belmont
Meadowdale
Dunbar
Thurgood Marshall

If you want to go to a school outside your neighborhood, I think there's an open enrollment process.

Stivers (Performing Arts) and Ponitz (Vocational) have an application process.

 

[nwwarrior09]

Same school from K to 12 may work in some rural towns but that's a rare thing in the city I'd believe. Asking a lot there fella.

That's asking a lot in an inner-city setting. The tighter you get to an urban core, there are a lot of legitimate reasons for a kid in a city to have a handful or more of addresses from pre-K through 12. It's a very apples to oranges comparison to make to certain small towns and rural communities (especially south of Toledo and north of Dayton) that have the lowest poverty rates in the state and a lot of social stability where 95+% of the kids go to school together all of the way through from start to finish.

 

[The Dock]

I could be mistaken about this, but I believe that in most large urban districts in Ohio the newer concept schools that are "early college", "STEM", etc. typically don't have their own sports teams and the kids compete for their local public while attending the concept school. Africentric is an exception to that. In Toledo, a kid that attends the early college high school would be playing basketball for their neighborhood school such as Start.

Columbus has five 'concept' schools.

Columbus Alternative (magnet) -- Sports? [ ] Yes [x] No
Ft. Hayes (performing arts) -- Sports? [ ] Yes [x] No
Columbus International (at the former North HS) -- Sports? [x] Yes [ ] No
Columbus Africentric -- Sports? [x] Yes [ ] No
Linden-McKinley (STEM) -- Sports? [x] Yes [ ] No

You are correct that the students attending the non-sports offering concept schools would play ball for their neighborhood school (typically Centennial, Northland or Whetstone.)

 

[nwwarrior09]

Columbus has five 'concept' schools.

Columbus Alternative (magnet) -- Sports? [ ] Yes [x] No
Ft. Hayes (performing arts) -- Sports? [ ] Yes [x] No
Columbus International (at the former North HS) -- Sports? [x] Yes [ ] No
Columbus Africentric -- Sports? [x] Yes [ ] No
Linden-McKinley (STEM) -- Sports? [x] Yes [ ] No

You are correct that the students attending the non-sports offering concept schools would play ball for their neighborhood school (typically Centennial, Northland or Whetstone.)

As a note to the complaining premise of this thread, this reminds me that I saw International play Harvest Prep a few years ago in a tournament game that made me question if the highest seeded teams on the bracket should be forced to take the available first round byes. The team that International fielded that year (2017-18?) had to be the worst high school team I've ever seen. Selective enrollment isn't necessarily a guarantor of athletic success depending on the concept of the school and who ends up running a given athletic program at the school.

 

[The Dock]

That's asking a lot in an inner-city setting. The tighter you get to an urban core, there are a lot of legitimate reasons for a kid in a city to have a handful or more of addresses from pre-K through 12. It's a very apples to oranges comparison to make to certain small towns and rural communities (especially south of Toledo and north of Dayton) that have the lowest poverty rates in the state and a lot of social stability where 95+% of the kids go to school together all of the way through from start to finish.

Yup. A coach at Columbus Briggs? Columbus West? Both of which are D1 city schools servicing the infamous Hilltop? Man... you wanna talk about tough. That's tough. If there are 15 fifth-grade girls playing at the schools that feed into them -- you have no real idea if you'll get more than 5. You can't see into the future and figure out what family is facing eviction & has to move, or if there are girls whose guardianship has changed over to their grandparents. Or if there are girls that have no choice but to assume supervision and caretaking responsibilities to their younger siblings because mom is the evening shift lead at White Castle to make ends meet and dad hasn't been involved for five years (or was killed.)

 

[The Dock]

As a note to the complaining premise of this thread, this reminds me that I saw International play Harvest Prep a few years ago in a tournament game that made me question if the highest seeded teams on the bracket should be forced to take the available first round byes. The team that International fielded that year (2017-18?) had to be the worst high school team I've ever seen.

Incidentally, International has one of the best boys freshman prospects in the entire city this year. 6'8" kid that averaged a dub-dub this shortened season.

Yeah, International used to be really damn rough. Still kinda are. They did have an awesome soccer team about five years ago, though.

 

[nwwarrior09]

Yup. A coach at Columbus Briggs? Columbus West? Both of which are D1 city schools servicing the infamous Hilltop? Man... you wanna talk about tough. That's tough. If there are 15 fifth-grade girls playing at the schools that feed into them -- you have no real idea if you'll get more than 5. You can't see into the future and figure out what family is facing eviction & has to move, or if there are girls whose guardianship has changed over to their grandparents. Or if there are girls that have no choice but to assume supervision and caretaking responsibilities to their younger siblings because mom is the evening shift lead at White Castle to make ends meet and dad hasn't been involved for five years (or was killed.)

Both of those schools are probably good examples of enrollment counts and competitive balance slotting urban core schools above where they should be at competitively. I believe this has come up a few times before on the football forum. The methodology behind how the enrollment count is conducted grossly overstates the number of bodies that are actually in school on a typical day at an urban core school like Briggs or West, whether it's kids that lack the supervision or an accountable guardian to make sure they're attending, kids that are infrequently showing up due to responsibilities at home, kids that are in-between schools due to transience and frequently moving, or any number of other reasons. If you're at a school like either of those places, it can be very difficult to generate enough stability around an athletic program to make gradual performance improvements with how many social issues some of the kids are trying to work around and balance with school and athletics.

 

[The Dock]

That's a different discussion, and it's a discussion that the current competitive balance formula hasn't done much to resolve the pre-existing problems. For the example of this thread, all that competitive balance seemed to achieve in the Central district is moving the power players that have different enrollment dynamics out of D4 and to D3 to play against similar small town and rural schools that are slightly larger than the ones they were playing in D4. I don't know that that issue has a good resolution.

May I pose a radical thought?

Competitive Balance hasn't fixed diddily in regards to the 'equitable competition' concerns folks have on Africentric playing the Cardington's, the Willards, Smithville's etc because the root of Africentric's girls basketball prowess is NOT fixable by weird math or division-shifting.

People crow "recruiting!" "AAU!" -- I get it. I used to be one of those posters. The more I chose to educate myself, talk to folks more and look at some of the sociology within the sports within the schools within the system, it became apparent what it is. It's a consolidation of the concerted and cultivated.

Girls basketball in the Columbus City League? It's Africentric, Eastmoor, and Northland. Maybe Walnut Ridge, some years. All the other 9-10 schools in the City? Literally nothing. No opportunity whatsoever. Might have 30 people, including parents, at your game. Only 9-10 girls in the entire school show up to practice by the 3rd week in November. The schools aren't a joke, but they most likely do not meet you where you're at. If you're a 12 year-old girl in the city, and you got dreams? Dreams to go to college? Playing basketball can help get you there. Of course you're going to want to attend an environment that's big on education and the sport that gives you a chance.

 

[The Dock]

Both of those schools are probably good examples of enrollment counts and competitive balance slotting urban core schools above where they should be at competitively. I believe this has come up a few times before on the football forum. The methodology behind how the enrollment count is conducted grossly overstates the number of bodies that are actually in school on a typical day at an urban core school like Briggs or West, whether it's kids that lack the supervision or an accountable guardian to make sure they're attending, kids that are infrequently showing up due to responsibilities at home, kids that are in-between schools due to transience and frequently moving, or any number of other reasons.

Briggs and West have each had less than 20 bodies, grades 9-12, on their varsity football team the past four years. And they're both D2.

Do you happen to recall, I don't remember how far back this was, but I want to say it was 2015-2016ish or so when a bunch of urban districts got freaking railroaded on enrollment figures that jacked them up to division assignments higher than they should have been? Africentric boys had got vaulted into D2 from D4 in the matter of one year. It incorporated some very weird, confusing "metric" that accounted for kids that physically live within a district but attend charters/non-OHSAA?

 

[nwwarrior09]

Briggs and West have each had less than 20 bodies, grades 9-12, on their varsity football team the past four years. And they're both D2.

Do you happen to recall, I don't remember how far back this was, but I want to say it was 2015-2016ish or so when a bunch of urban districts got freaking railroaded on enrollment figures that jacked them up to division assignments higher than they should have been? Africentric boys had got vaulted into D2 from D4 in the matter of one year. It incorporated some very weird, confusing "metric" that accounted for kids that physically live within a district but attend charters/non-OHSAA?

I do kind of vaguely recall something like that, and I'm guessing that's how the enrollment count topic made its way to the football forum. For example, around that time Toledo Scott and Toledo Woodward were D3 in football. Both of those schools, on a day-to-day basis, best case might have a similar number of bodies in the hallways as a larger D5 school. There are a lot of daily attendance dynamics at play that you're not going to catch with a snapshot "enrollment tally" on a given date or with any metric like the number of school age kids living within the neighborhood's boundaries.

I don't envision it happening, but the most accurate way to try to gauge enrollment figures for schools that have these attendance dynamics probably looks like averaging the daily attendance over 5-10 picked days over the first 6-8 weeks of school, maybe adding around 10% to the average to try to account for absent students that will attend more often than not. Just focus on getting a ballpark average after new counts are run on everyone else in time to get these schools divisional assignments for fall sports tournament seedings and draws.

 

[Wcsfan]

Seems like every year someone around this time someone accuses Africentric for cheating. Berlin Hiland has had the same success if not more, not a word said. So does Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame, not a word said. I think it’s the name Africentric that triggers you. It’s a Columbus Public School. Let it go for heaven’s sake.

 

[IVCguy]

Seems like every year someone around this time someone accuses Africentric for cheating. Berlin Hiland has had the same success if not more, not a word said. So does Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame, not a word said. I think it’s the name Africentric that triggers you. It’s a Columbus Public School. Let it go for heaven’s sake.

Tell me about Hiland.

 

[Oliver24]

Seems like every year someone around this time someone accuses Africentric for cheating. Berlin Hiland has had the same success if not more, not a word said. So does Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame, not a word said. I think it’s the name Africentric that triggers you. It’s a Columbus Public School. Let it go for heaven’s sake.

Honestly, it has nothing to do with any school’s name or location for arguments sake. It’s about what is happening on the basketball court, and in my opinion it is wrong. Africentric’s unprecedented success in girls basketball in a relatively short period of time is suspicious. We all understand that some schools have more success than others, but stacking the deck is disingenuous. They’ve had an inordinate number of division 1 scholarship athletes for a D3 high school team (They had girls from last years team go to Rutgers, Minnesota and Texas Tech), and had the #2 player in the nation go to Tennesse two years ago...with two two current members going to Pitt and Indiana State...and currently have a frosh with an offer from Ohio State. Does that sound like a D3 high school team?? I don’t know what the fix is, except to say that the OHSAA needs more divisions in basketball and severe punishments for not reporting accurate enrollment/residence numbers. To date, they have not come up with a sound solution. If anything, it is getting worse. And sadly, people are becoming numb to it.