brady

Because the NCAA Championship game has about 60,000 more fans than the UIL Championship games.

You guys are crazy. Have you been to a basketball game at Jerry World? Forget moving the fans to better seats because there are no good seats. No football stadium should host the high school basketball state championship. Austin can be an expensive place in general but if SXSW is making prices rise then move the state tournament back a weekend. There. Fixed it.

Extra-curricular activities are an important part of the high school experience. It keeps kids busy after school and allows them to find a passion or hobby, whether sports or band or theater, etc. There are lessons learned through these programs that can never be taught in a history class. However, it makes no sense for one group of students to drain everyone's tax dollars. I am the #1 proponent of school sports but I believe the day is coming, and rightfully so, where each student involved in a sport or other activity is required to financially offset the cost of participating. This already happens for drill teams and cheerleaders. Budgets being the way they are, there's no way sports will go untouched by cuts.

I've kicked this around for a little while and I'll throw it out there: The UIL should go to a 7A classification system. There would be roughly 150 schools in each class, with no school doubling the enrollment amount of any school in its classification, except for the extremes in 1A and 7A. There would be 32 districts of 4 or 5 teams in each classification. This would cut down on travel because coaches would get to schedule more non-district games against local opponents and rivals that may not be in their district or even current classification. The top two teams in each district would go to the playoffs, creating a 64 team tournament in all classifications. That means a little more than 40% of all schools participate in the playoffs. As an aside, Basketball should trim it's season by 1 week and allow one additional tournament to be played.

In '79 wasn't there still a class B? So wasn't Lufkin's 4A win really a 5A win? 1979 was a little before my time so I don't know. If so has there ever been an East Texas 4A championship? To answer your rhetorical question Longview was led by Bobby Taylor and David Wesley so yes they were great athletes that had good professional careers. There have been plenty of good basketball players that didn't win a 4A or 5A state championship... Damien James from Nacogdoches comes to mind first. John Tyler has had a ton of good basketball players and not won a state championship. That said I hope JT wins. I think they have a chance to make some noise. The brackets are set up much better for East Texas teams now to make a run than they used to be. You don't have to go through the heart of Dallas in the first couple of rounds anymore. Whoever wins has #1 and #2 waiting on them in the Regional Tournament. Pretty typical for 4A region II.

No he's saying that with volleyball there's only two games a night: jv girls and varsity girls. During basketball season there are four games: jv girls, jv boys, varsity girls, varsity boys.

Counterpoint: A) More kids play = more meals to pay for, higher uniform costs, more coaches to pay, more officials to pay. B) While basketball does play more games, basketball teams usually share buses for travel, especially during district play when all teams are playing the same opponents. Football is multiple buses on multiple days. Football is the most expensive team sport to play. You can't make the argument that the gate pays for JV football because it's either free to attend or there aren't enough people in the stands to cover expenses.

How could JV football possibly cost less than JV basketball?

I think 6A is necessary for the other sports. Football is already broken into ten divisions plus two 6 man divisions. This debate begs the question at what point do the other sports stand up for themselves? Football has more than double the amount of champions, state finalists, etc of any other sport. So in the public eye there are twice as many good football coaches, programs, schools, etc as there are in any other sport. The other sports are letting themselves get walked all over with the way playoffs are set up for football.

I can confirm all of that.

I wanted to point out one more thing... On apacheathletics.com you can look at previous recent brackets and results. Look at the last 4 teams standing each of the past 5 years, listed in order of place... 2006: Lindale, Whitehouse, Arp, Tatum 2007: Large: Whitehouse, Jacksonville Small: Lakeside, LA, Arp 2008: Large: Whitehouse, John Tyler Small: Chapel Hill, Tatum 2009: Large: John Tyler, Jacksonville Small: Brook Hill, Bullard 2010: Large: John Tyler & Longview Small: Arp & Tatum, among others Pretty good matchups. If you can think back to the time those were all fairly intense rivalries except for a couple. What makes college and high school basketball exciting is the passion of the fan-bases. If it means something to the town or school, then it makes the games more intense. That is what is missing from East Texas HS basketball and then therefore the Wagstaff... less people care.

I think Lee owes Tyler a little bit, since it is in Tyler. But I think it's a two-way street. The Wagstaff needs to be worth playing in for Lee to be there. At the same time I don't think the Wagstaff will be "what it used to be" unless Lee and JT are in it. It's probably time for the Wag to bring in schools from outside the East Texas area for the big school division. I also like the idea of bringing in another local school to host some other games. Maybe let Lee or JT host a few games. Tournaments are going the way of as many games as possible instead of a strict tournament format. Bring in a few outsiders, have an 8 team big school bracket and a 12 team small school bracket and let everybody play 4 games. There's also very few compelling match-ups/teams. Whitehouse-Lindale maybe? Bullard-Brook Hill for the people in Bullard? Tatum is probably fun to watch. John Tyler-Longview? I'm trying to think who I would be excited to watch. I think it speaks more to what these basketball programs have become more than what the tournament has become.

Just cleaned up the inbox Coach Reid.

Against the rules? You mean beating the rest of the field and making it into the finals was against the rules? I do agree that too many teams from the same district is a negative.

I probably could have worded that better. No disrespect to the Brownsboro tournament. I actually like it. My point was that by thinning out the bigger schools you turn into another 3A and under tournament in East Texas. If it's the same competition all the teams have faced in previous tournaments, that's less incentive for them to participate in the Wagstaff.