Easy...did not imply the term "leftovers" as a means to denigrate the students who decide to attend FC. I am not trying to "crow," as you say, any type of "toxic" ideaology.
There are definitely benefits to attend a private school, rather than a public school, but that might be for a different forum discussion.
In fact, the only implication I was making is that FC's success in athletics might persuade some students in Lancaster to attend FC. If it is a "toxic" idea to think that having successful athletic programs, in addition to their education aren't positive means to promote their school, then I apologize.
Whew...long response to explain to such a small misunderstanding, but that seems to be the political environment we live in today.
I’ll weigh in. I think dude mistook you for a Lancaster fan.
I didn’t think your comment when you posted it was toxic. Although I do see why it could be read and interpreted that way.
Lancaster and FC — as schools — have a… eh,
come se dicé… long history (the schools go back to the 19th century.) It’s not a glamorous history, it’s not a Nancy-and-Ronald power couple, nor is it even a friendly public affair; but, it’s also not a China/Taiwan or some super-acrimonious affair. I guess the best way to characterize it is “friendlier, more cooperative” than Newark/NC but again not sunshine-and-rainbows either. Inevitably there is an intersection with sports…
That intersection… is kind of wonky. It’s not a complete Cold War between the two schools in sports — we’ve played Lancaster baseball in late May in ‘18, ‘19, ‘21; we scrimmage in boys’ soccer. More contests than Wildcats/Wave. My perspective on the contests is LHS is willing to play FC in sports when they believe they have a pretty reasonable chance to win in a competitive and spirited affair (so, NOT football or softball but conversely not FC VBall or GBK… some years BBK.) Which, that’s fine.
Now, the flip-side of that intersection has two components…
1) media / promotion — we only have one sportswriter in the area, so it’s different than Kurt and Dave up north being able to get Newark their due as well as the LCL. The Gales absorb a
ton of coverage by the sole writer. A
ton. Good writer? Yeah. Also goes above and beyond to get the Gales profiled in a manner that frankly isn’t extended to other schools in the area. Whether or not that’s “fair” is beside the point, because receiving minimized coverage in favor of the big school DOES hurt your school. And, it DOES hurt the overall landscape of HS sports for not just your school but your peers in the process (because if you don’t get “15 seconds “ coverage the paper’s Twitter, they’re not making it in either!)
2) the student-athlete experience…
A.) LANCASTER — unless a kid at Lancaster is a phenomenal athlete with the right measurables to boot, they are NOT going to get the three-sport experience by their senior year. The baseball coach wants them focused on baseball, the basketball coach wants them focused on basketball and the football coaches are only warm toward the football kids doing other things to a certain extent (wrestling is promoted obviously.) Lancaster also just restructured their JH program recently to where, instead of there being individual 7th and 8th grade teams each from Ewing and Sherman JH’s, it is now a 7th grade team and 8th grade team with the two schools combined. I understand the logic and advantages of that top-down restructuring, but,
damnit, the flip side is a string of kids in every graduating class henceforth won’t have a realistic opportunity to see the field down the line if they drew a genetic short-straw or lost ground for the starting spot because they were doing other sports in the off-season. The commands to be
competitive in the OCC are there, and the response to those commands causes 14-18 year old kids to have a(n albeit scaled-down) workload identical to what 19-22 year old kids have at a small D3 college. It’s a HUGE expense of time and resources geared toward a constantly-elusive goal: winning the premier big school conference in Ohio.
B.) FC — whereas Lancaster’s athletics command a
vertical and specialized commitment, our’s by contrast is horizontal and generalized. Can’t have 90% of your boys specializing in one sport, because then you don’t have enough kids on the bench to sub in and out. It’s not relaxed by comparison to Lancaster’s, because relaxed means you’re going 0-10 and losing by 40 yearly, getting running-clocked every game in hoops and playing 5-inning baseball 20x a year. I do
firmly believe our kids work as hard at the sports as the peers down the road — it’s just that our kids have to slice the time and energy pie three (in some cases, four!) ways whereas most kids at LHS have the whole pie toward one sport by the time they’re juniors and seniors (if not earlier.) Simple product of numbers! One school is 10x larger than the other.
