Crimson and Black
Well-known member
Has there ever been another dynasty that was as dominant as Marion Local is now? I’m thinking no. It would be nice if no one turns this topic into uncivilized insults.
Marion Local Dominance
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Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
If you look at the various teams at state except for Eds or Kirtland none have played as well in all facets of the game as Marion Local. Offensively run 1st team but can throw the football. Defensively can defend the run and pass, and special teams good kicking game and return game look at how many teams call for fair catches or let the ball bounce not the Flyers. Also, very few penalties, disciplined. Would the Flyers beat Mass. or Eds no but are they just as good in all phases of the game if not better? As is Kirtland (except maybe when it comes to throwing the football).
Marion Local seems to be the "perfect marriage" between community & coaching. The way that the youth in their community are raised at home aligns perfectly with the way that Coach Goodwin deals with them. Seems to be the perfect formula as they don't get kids from anywhere else.
RollingTrain
Well-known member
Bingo!
Nope, they have certainly dominated a watered down playoff system. I mean you had to take it to 6 and 7 divisions before they "became a dynasty!"
So how were the ML youth being raised before the playoffs were watered down to 7 divisions? Or where they all playing for Versailles, St. Henry?
UrsulineFan75
Active member
You’re such a moron. Why aren’t there other dynasties in D7? Why only one?
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
Goodwin became coach in 99, Marion Local has won state titles in D5, 6, and 7. As has DSJ, Coldwater, Minster, Versailles and SH. All those MAC schools have won state titles before there were 7 divisions. Coldwater and Versailles both have won titles in D4. Take your nonsense elsewhere.
Ha, Ha so typical...so now we are not talking about an ML dynasty, but, but, but the MAC. Sooo, where was the MAC before the playoffs were watered down? Why didn't they have hard working kids a dynasty before that? I don't think Versailles was even in the MAC when they were winning most of their championships.
So did that coach make the parents raise their kids the right way starting in 99
? What were they doing before that?
Sykotyk
Well-known member
The closest correlation is from Pennsylvania.
Southern Columbia is from Catawissa, which encompasses the area of Knoebels' amusement park. It's essentially a bedroom community of Bloomsburg. It's a smaller school (formerly 1A, but now 2A under six-classes). They take in a lot of money from outside their area, which makes the community much more prosperous than the surrounding schools.
They've won 19 consecutive district titles. Next week they'll appear in their 22nd (and 9th straight) state championship game. They've won 13 state championships. They're going for a 7-peat next week against Westinghouse.
Their first title was in 1994, but the bulk have been since 2002.
Wins in 1994, 2002-06, 2015, and 2017-22.
What's more amazing, is their adversary.
In 1991, Rochester appeared in their first state title (PA started theirs in 1988). Rochester beat Southern Columbia in 1998, 2000 and 2001. They lost in 2002 and 2004 to SC. After that, Rochester fell apart. But Southern Columbia went through a dry spell from 2007 to 2014, and then went on fire again.
Southern Columbia is from Catawissa, which encompasses the area of Knoebels' amusement park. It's essentially a bedroom community of Bloomsburg. It's a smaller school (formerly 1A, but now 2A under six-classes). They take in a lot of money from outside their area, which makes the community much more prosperous than the surrounding schools.
They've won 19 consecutive district titles. Next week they'll appear in their 22nd (and 9th straight) state championship game. They've won 13 state championships. They're going for a 7-peat next week against Westinghouse.
Their first title was in 1994, but the bulk have been since 2002.
Wins in 1994, 2002-06, 2015, and 2017-22.
What's more amazing, is their adversary.
In 1991, Rochester appeared in their first state title (PA started theirs in 1988). Rochester beat Southern Columbia in 1998, 2000 and 2001. They lost in 2002 and 2004 to SC. After that, Rochester fell apart. But Southern Columbia went through a dry spell from 2007 to 2014, and then went on fire again.
1999 was also the year the number of playoff qualifiers doubled. Not sure if that’s what you mean by watered down, but the result was that a team that only made the playoffs twice prior suddenly qualified 24 of the next 25 years and won 14 titles. Imagine if they hadn’t been watered down and all those teams better than ML could have won those titles…
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
No what I was trying to convey to a troll was Marion Local success started with Goodwin not 7 divisions.
It does seem weird that schools from that area only started dominating when the champions were determined less by the influence of computers and polls and more by on field results...
Oh wait.
Yes, I think we all knew there were always pockets of better conferences, and many schools avoided them when only the top 4 in the region made the playoffs. Many a good team who scheduled up paid the price of not making the playoffs, while a team who carefully scheduled weaker opponents in a weak conference could rack up the points needed to get in the playoffs.
YTOWN
Well-known member
Start with the 1988 season and their playoff record from 1988-1996 was 31-2 with 7 state championships and 1 runner-up finish.
The morals and how the youth is raised changed around 2000. Those morals and hard work still prevails in that area,probably a direct correlation to Mercer County having usually the lowest unemployment rate in Ohio. Ya,there small school,but you don't want to be the brother,cousin that doesn't have a Championship. These kids all go to kindergarten together, grow up together.
JacksonSmith
New member
Actually I believe have they have state titles in, 5,6 and 7.
Bluestreak1980
Well-known member
What is crazy is Kirtland is 3-1 in state finals in D5. 2 wins over Ironton and 1 over Coldwater and 1 loss to Coldwater. D6 they’re 3-4 vs the MAC and 1 win over Wayne Trace
Flyer_pride
Active member
The youth have always been raised basically the same going back every generation since this area was settled, hard work, religion and discipline.
The football program has been typically very good to a dominant program since the late 1960's or early 1970's.
Prior to this, our area was mostly comprised of small 100 acre catholic dairy farm families with a large amount of kids to provide the labor to run the farm. During these times, many of the kids didn't play sports or attend high school because they were needed to work on the farm. If lucky, the parent may have let them participate in 1 sport. That sport was typically basketball because farming would typically slow down in the winter.
In the early to mid 1960's, several key inventions in the farming industry like automatic milkers, balers, 3 row corn pickers etc freed up their time and allowed the kids to start participating in sports even more. In addition; the businesses that started after World War II and Korea began to really grow and allowed more job options other than farming. Population increased in these small towns because of these changes and it allowed more area schools around Marion Local to start or develop their Football programs. Because of the local rural schools starting football programs, this allowed Marion Local to play and schedule local schools with similar enrollment instead of making the 30 minutes to 1 hour drives to the city schools to play their JVs or get soundly beaten by their Varsity.
The 1970's was some very tough economic times in the American Economy. Because of this and gas shortages, Marion Local typically scheduled local schools 2 times a year on their schedule to cut down on the travel time. The games started at 8pm to allow for the milking to be done. During these times until the early 1980's, Marion Local would typically schedule Versailles, Coldwater and occasionally Minster or St. Henry twice on their football schedule.
The 1980's saw a lot of the small family farms go bankrupt. In our area, a lot of the small family farms sold to other farm families which led to much bigger farms with bigger equipment because more land was needed to be profitable. The kids that were part of the small family farms began working in factories, went to college or worked trade jobs instead of farming. This caused smaller families and more residential areas to form in the Marion Local school district and everyone started getting more free time.
I think prior to the early 1980's, the MAC and other small conferences in West Central Ohio had no other thoughts on extracurricular activities other than it was just a sport. Playoffs or State Titles in Football was something really not considered or talked about. Marion Local made the playoffs in 1981 and Jim Lachey went to Ohio State. The MAC schools really started developing their football programs. Coldwater had always been very strong; but due to their larger enrollment being AA school playing mostly A schools, they could never get enough computer points to make the playoffs. The MAC started scheduling their games with out of conference opponents and stopped playing the same schools twice a year. By the late 1980's, the playoffs started to expand and gave MAC teams a real shot of having a shot of earning enough Harbin Points to make the playoffs. St. Henry had a once in a lifetime class come into highschool led by Bobby Hoying (Ohio State), Jeff Hartings (Penn State) , Kevin Niekamp (Ohio State) and Scott Brunswick (Toledo). This changed how football and basketball was played in the MAC. The amount of media coverage St. Henry received motivated everyone else to catch up. Minster had a coach in Ken Newland that pushed the weight room which helped lead them to winning the 1st Football State Title in the MAC. This motivated everyone else to keep up. In the early 90's Versailles reeled off their 57 game winning streak with multiple state titles and then it was followed up by Delphos St. John starting their dynasty. St. Henry continued their dominance. In the late 1990's, the internet became available in MAC Country. This created early forms of Social Media like chat groups and websites like JJ Huddle. The OHSAA expanded the playoffs again and this blew up high school football all over the state because people had the time to learn and hear about all the programs all over. The expanded playoffs made it an equal playing field for every good team to get a shot at making the playoffs and decide it out on the field. This is also the time that Marion Local hired Tim Goodwin.
I think why Marion Local has maintained their level of dominance is because we have an incredible coaching staff, we have the lowest unemployment in the state with 2 parent homes typically and the kids are raised with discipline. We have a 2% poverty rate so most of the kids are not required to find jobs to help the family or raise themselves. Our school academics are excellent where we typically place in the top 1% in testing and graduation rates (all at a public school price). We don't recruit and develop the kids we have. We don't have soccer. Drug abuse hasn't crept into our community nearly as hard as it has in many other communities that tear up other communities and families. We have high property taxes, very little low income housing and high land prices which kind of keeps us in a bubble.
When we make long playoff runs, we basically have been getting 6 extra weeks of practice every year. When the OHSAA expanded the playoffs, it basically rewarded the successful programs an extra half year of practice over the non winning programs. This has widened the gap.
I believe Covid benefited us big time too. While everyone was in lockdown, shutdown mode, we typically carried on with our way of life. Everyone was still working or working from home with a lot less layoffs that other areas experienced. Area Schools only closed initially at the beginning of COVID; but by the summer, the youth programs were back running, people were working, kids were training on their own and by August of 2020, the MAC schools were practicing for their fall sports and attended school in person while many were still at home. Many businesses continued allowing employees to work remote or work remote a few days a week. This created a mini housing boom in the Marion Local Community. Many former alumni that were living in cities or the suburbs began getting married and starting families. Because they had more job flexibility, they began to start moving back home to start raising their kids how they were raised. Our enrollment numbers have gone to around 100 per class starting in the Kindergarten and preschool ages at Marion. We recently passed a levy where we will be building a new school because of this.
Flyer_pride
Active member
If you ask any fan in the MAC that regularly attends school functions about who has the worst facilities in the MAC, it is an easy answer.. Marion Local. Although it is well maintained and clean, Marion's facilities are old, outdated and small. We have terrible restrooms at our football stadium, a weight room that is split between the bathrooms and concession stand at the football field, a high school gym that has low ceilings, a junior high gym that has a floor not big enough to be able to shoot corner 3 pointers and after the 7th grade game, the parents need to clear out of the gym so that the 8th grade parents can sit in the stands for the 8th grade game. We have cobbed together rooms that we use for administrative offices, made storage closets into classrooms and have always done more with less. The new levy that is funded completely by the tax payers of the Marion Local community will add a new gym, administrative offices etc; but we still do not have an athletic complex or will by no means rival some of the facilities our neighboring schools recently built. This addition of an additional gym will actually allow the students to have practices at more proper times of the day. Our Jr High gym is basically used as a Community Gathering Center and holds special functions at school. During these days at school, there is no gym class in the elementary because we don't have the space. The High School gym is shut down for 2 weeks in April so that the Fine Arts Department can perform their high school play. This new Levy is not just about sports, it was about improving our facilities to provide a more rounded education to all students at Marion Local. If over 98% of the kids at Marion Local participate in ExtraCurricular activities, wouldn't it be rather stupid to not invest in additional room for the extra curriculars? Especially when our class size are increasing from approx 60 to 70 a class to over 100 per grade the next several years of incoming kindergarten classes. For people complaining about the levy, do you realize the quality of education that your son or daughter received at Marion Local? You got a private school education at a public school price. Do you realize the tuition you would have had to pay for this in other areas?
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
Yet with all those facilities lacking Flyers have won numerous titles in different sports, it's not the facilities that make the team but mostly the coach and players. If facilities won championships New Bremen would dominate.
Edit: and despite of lack of so-called facilities ML finished 2nd in state testing. So with all these new class rooms - taxpayer money I would expect Flyers to finish 1st in these state tests.
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I see both sides of the facilities issue. Numerous school districts in Ohio have gotten really nice, new buildings and superb technology upgrades in the past twenty years, yet the worrisome academic performance of their students has not noticeably risen.
Same for sports programs - an awesome weight room doesn't help the school's teams much unless the players consistently use it.
At the same time, at some point districts CAN justify spending money on new facilities - and I think Marion is at that point. I voted in favor of the levy.
Not to be a jerk who takes things to an extreme, but I'm guessing there were people in the Marion district who opposed the construction of the current high school in the late 1950s. They probably argued that the multiple buildings spread throughout the district (e.g., two-room schoolhouse serving grades 1-8 in St. Sebastian that remained in use into the 1960s) were educating the students just fine. Today, such an arrangement would seem nearly absurd.
Flyer_pride
Active member
I don't expect anything different and don't expect a new building to raise the academics. I expect continued excellence in academics and strong athletic programs. It's ok to have nice things. Progress is a good thing. Our administration, school board and a community task force came together because they knew our facilities were lacking. I trust these people and guess I am not 1 of those pessimistic people that think there is always an ulterior motive or someone is trying to screw me out of money. For years, I had to bring my kids to practices at 6 in the morning or pick them up at 9 at night because there was no gym space. My kids will never get to use the new facilities; but I want my neighbor kids, grandkids and future Marion Local Flyers to have every chance to be better or continue the tradition in better facilities than what I got to use.
State2013-1
Well-known member
We were on the verge of having to pay for modular, portable classrooms for a $1 million a year price tag. The levy was greatly warranted and if our community weren't such sticklers to update our facilities with the mantra "I didn't have that nice stuff so they don't need it now" we would have had a nicer, more accommodating facility 5 years ago for millions less than what we are paying for this stepped down version the task force had to come up with to appease people. Blows my mind that that for as much pride as we have in our school and our students performances there are so many people out there that think our kids don't deserve the best when they are the best. Kinda backwards if you ask me but that's just my opinion.
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