UPDATE: UIL gives two-year playoff ban to Alto

[villagegenius]

I watched/listened to the meeting live out of pure interest simply because this is a landmark case for the UIL. As they said, nothing like this has ever happened before at this time. The UIL was painted into a corner. I believe it was Dr Harrison who said that the UIL purposefully has safeguards in place in November and December to let schools reconfirm their numbers in case a mistake was made. For the timing of this to happen in August, it’s too late. They had no choice. If they had let Alto compete in 2A-D2 with the right to advance, then what would stop a large number of schools from “making a mistake” and not notifying the UIL until May or whenever it was the allegations came to light. 
 

As was said in the meeting, rules are rules and no matter what the intent was, rules were broken and there are consequences. 
 

Personally, I think Alto dodged a bullet. Based on what I heard in the meeting, I thought the UIL might carry the punishment across all sports due to the obvious lack of concern on Altos part on getting the process correct. There were, according to Alto ISD themselves, literally no procedures or processes in place to make sure what they presented to the UIL was factually correct. As the NCAA would so fondly put it, that’s “Lack of Institutional Control” if I’ve ever seen it. The UIL relies on schools to do their due diligence to make sure that number they turn in is correct, and Alto failed. Whether you think it was intentional or not, as someone in the meeting said, that is a whole lot of strange coincidences and we just don’t believe in coincidences here. 

[Mavchamp]

2 hours ago, JBizzle said:

I agree that there are classifications for a reason, but It's 3 kids.  It's not like that gave them a significant advantage over the other teams in the division.  Let's not blow it out of proportion.

You may very well be correct for the schools in that district also near the top end of the cutoff…… but what about those on the bottom end?  That’s were the disparity can be glaring. 

[JasonDellaRosa]

You hate to be cynical but if Alto does not receive that punishment, how many schools in the future submit a number they think will be under whatever the cutoff might be to either stay down or move down a division or classification to gain an advantage?

 

At what point is it an issue, if you submit a number three kids off or 10 or 15?

 

If Alto is allowed to participate in the playoffs, you are just asking coaches to skirt the rules for a competitive advantage

[neveragain]

22 minutes ago, JasonDellaRosa said:

You hate to be cynical but if Alto does not receive that punishment, how many schools in the future submit a number they think will be under whatever the cutoff might be to either stay down or move down a division or classification to gain an advantage?

 

At what point is it an issue, if you submit a number three kids off or 10 or 15?

 

If Alto is allowed to participate in the playoffs, you are just asking coaches to skirt the rules for a competitive advantage

Just to be clear, coaches do not submit the realignment numbers nor are they involved in the enrollment of students.  The superintendent (or their designee) submits the numbers to the UIL and there should be numerous people who know the number....principal, secretary, PEIMS clerk, attendance clerk, etc.  and yes, even small schools have most of these positions so there can be accountability. 

[blueflu]

42 minutes ago, villagegenius said:

I watched/listened to the meeting live out of pure interest simply because this is a landmark case for the UIL. As they said, nothing like this has ever happened before at this time. The UIL was painted into a corner. I believe it was Dr Harrison who said that the UIL purposefully has safeguards in place in November and December to let schools reconfirm their numbers in case a mistake was made. For the timing of this to happen in August, it’s too late. They had no choice. If they had let Alto compete in 2A-D2 with the right to advance, then what would stop a large number of schools from “making a mistake” and not notifying the UIL until May or whenever it was the allegations came to light. 
 

As was said in the meeting, rules are rules and no matter what the intent was, rules were broken and there are consequences. 
 

Personally, I think Alto dodged a bullet. Based on what I heard in the meeting, I thought the UIL might carry the punishment across all sports due to the obvious lack of concern on Altos part on getting the process correct. There were, according to Alto ISD themselves, literally no procedures or processes in place to make sure what they presented to the UIL was factually correct. As the NCAA would so fondly put it, that’s “Lack of Institutional Control” if I’ve ever seen it. The UIL relies on schools to do their due diligence to make sure that number they turn in is correct, and Alto failed. Whether you think it was intentional or not, as someone in the meeting said, that is a whole lot of strange coincidences and we just don’t believe in coincidences here. 

wow, great post

[JBizzle]

51 minutes ago, Mavchamp said:

You may very well be correct for the schools in that district also near the top end of the cutoff…… but what about those on the bottom end?  That’s were the disparity can be glaring. 

Again, they are competing against a school that at least has Alto's number minus 3 right now...

[Mavchamp]

5 minutes ago, JBizzle said:

Again, they are competing against a school that at least has Alto's number minus 3 right now...

That didn't address my point.... sure there may be schools in the district close to Alto's numbers.  But what about the teams in that district that are significatly smaller than Alto?

What if one of those small 2A Div II schools LOST to Alto and missed the playoffs because of it?  What if it were 2 smaller schools that lost to Alto?

Every single win Alto would have had over a smaller school would have been illegitimate.  Especially if there was a big discrepancy between Alto and the smaller school/schools. 

 

[JBizzle]

51 minutes ago, Mavchamp said:

That didn't address my point.... sure there may be schools in the district close to Alto's numbers.  But what about the teams in that district that are significatly smaller than Alto?

What if one of those small 2A Div II schools LOST to Alto and missed the playoffs because of it?  What if it were 2 smaller schools that lost to Alto?

Every single win Alto would have had over a smaller school would have been illegitimate.  Especially if there was a big discrepancy between Alto and the smaller school/schools. 

 

And again, they are playing teams that have the same number of students as Alto -3 already.  Let's not act like it's a huge deal.  The discrepancies used to be much higher.  I agree it's for balance and is the right thing to do, but the splits are somewhat arbitrary based on number of schools in the range and not just top to bottom difference.  Those smaller schools are gonna have to beat some larger schools along the way to win it all.

I already said they should be punished.  Let's not make it like they had 60 extra kids or 5 JUCO athletes on the squad.

[JBizzle]

3 hours ago, GraysonFan said:

I don't think you would need to hire people to come in and "investigate".  It's a small school, there are only a handful of people that would have access and be responsible for counting and submitting.  Could probably figure out in 10 minutes.

Obviously they can't count to 165, so I think they may need to hire someone.

[blueflu]

simple, u cant do that

[PostSurfer]

Snapshot numbers were submitted October 30.

Cutoff numbers for realignment were announced December 8.

Was this ever mentioned during the hearing? Never heard it while watching the video that KLTV posted.

Pretty good guessing to know to reduce number by 3 if this was intentional.

[Mavchamp]

1 hour ago, JBizzle said:

And again, they are playing teams that have the same number of students as Alto -3 already.  Let's not act like it's a huge deal.  The discrepancies used to be much higher.  I agree it's for balance and is the right thing to do, but the splits are somewhat arbitrary based on number of schools in the range and not just top to bottom difference.  Those smaller schools are gonna have to beat some larger schools along the way to win it all.

I already said they should be punished.  Let's not make it like they had 60 extra kids or 5 JUCO athletes on the squad.

Snapshot Numbers
Alto 163 (actually 166)
Carlisle 163
Cushing 157
Tenaha 152
Mount Enterprise 130
Overton 120

Not all the teams in that district are close to Alto's numbers..... there IS a big discrepancy between Alto and the two smallest schools.  Therefore it IS a huge deal.  Especially if one of those smaller schools missed out on the playoffs due to losing to Alto.

And yes...they may have to beat some bigger schools to win it all....but it shouldn't be Alto.

And no...they didn't have 60 extra kids.... they had 46... which is pretty significant when you are talking about numbers as small as 120 and 160.

I get it....the difference for Carlisle, Cushing, and Tenaha is no big deal competitively

But wouldn't Overton and Mt. Enterprise have a legit gripe?  Alto has about 23% more students than ME..... and 28% more than Overton.  Seems pretty significant.  Especially if a loss to Alto kept you out of the playoffs....  that's not blowing things out of proportion.  That's a pretty big deal if it had gone unnoticed and/or unchecked.

JMHO

[trueblue82]

I think it shows great character among the Alto faithful here on SDC that none of the ones complaining about this ruling are Yellowjacket fans. 

[villagegenius]

5 minutes ago, trueblue82 said:

I think it shows great character among the Alto faithful here on SDC that none of the ones complaining about this ruling are Yellowjacket fans. 

You should get on Facebook

[WildBear]

The moral of this story:

Make sure you turn in the right numbers. 

[blueflu]

13 minutes ago, WildBear said:

The moral of this story:

Make sure you turn in the right numbers. 

yes

[Lambo]

4 hours ago, StillGreezy said:

 

What in the hell is wrong with you? 

It was originally a joke... I forget you can't hear sarcasm on the Internet.

[PantherNation2015]

1 hour ago, villagegenius said:

You should get on Facebook

Those are the ones checking on job postings and rent houses in surrounding districts.

[JasonDellaRosa]

6 hours ago, PostSurfer said:

Snapshot numbers were submitted October 30.

Cutoff numbers for realignment were announced December 8.

Was this ever mentioned during the hearing? Never heard it while watching the video that KLTV posted.

Pretty good guessing to know to reduce number by 3 if this was intentional.

Based on the historical trend, you can make a very good guess as to where the number might end up falling. I you end up guessing wrong, well you are where you are supposed to be. If you guess right, then it paid off.

 

The 2A split this time was 164.5

In 2020 it was 165.5

In 2018 it was 161.5

In 2016 it was 158

 

It'd be pretty easy to guess that the cutoff would be around 167.5/168.5 going into this one.

[JasonDellaRosa]

9 hours ago, neveragain said:

Just to be clear, coaches do not submit the realignment numbers nor are they involved in the enrollment of students.  The superintendent (or their designee) submits the numbers to the UIL and there should be numerous people who know the number....principal, secretary, PEIMS clerk, attendance clerk, etc.  and yes, even small schools have most of these positions so there can be accountability. 

 

 

I should have said schools instead of coaches. Either way it is a slippery slope if you don't punish at all / don't make it significant. There is a reason why this happening is extremely rare.

[JBizzle]

13 hours ago, Mavchamp said:

Snapshot Numbers
Alto 163 (actually 166)
Carlisle 163
Cushing 157
Tenaha 152
Mount Enterprise 130
Overton 120

Not all the teams in that district are close to Alto's numbers..... there IS a big discrepancy between Alto and the two smallest schools.  Therefore it IS a huge deal.  Especially if one of those smaller schools missed out on the playoffs due to losing to Alto.

And yes...they may have to beat some bigger schools to win it all....but it shouldn't be Alto.

And no...they didn't have 60 extra kids.... they had 46... which is pretty significant when you are talking about numbers as small as 120 and 160.

I get it....the difference for Carlisle, Cushing, and Tenaha is no big deal competitively

But wouldn't Overton and Mt. Enterprise have a legit gripe?  Alto has about 23% more students than ME..... and 28% more than Overton.  Seems pretty significant.  Especially if a loss to Alto kept you out of the playoffs....  that's not blowing things out of proportion.  That's a pretty big deal if it had gone unnoticed and/or unchecked.

JMHO

Haha...I am not arguing with what you are saying.  They are still playing Carlisle, Cushing, Tenaha...

My point is, the cutoff could have easily been above alto's number, then what would the complaint be?

I already said I support the punishment.  Cutoff's are there for a reason, and schools should not subvert it.

Again, my point was they were right at the cutoff, so it isn't going to massively affect 2AD2 as a whole.  I forgot that some of you think making the playoffs as a 4 seed is a huge deal to be celebrated.

[SAPACK1]

16 hours ago, Mavchamp said:

That didn't address my point.... sure there may be schools in the district close to Alto's numbers.  But what about the teams in that district that are significatly smaller than Alto?

What if one of those small 2A Div II schools LOST to Alto and missed the playoffs because of it?  What if it were 2 smaller schools that lost to Alto?

Every single win Alto would have had over a smaller school would have been illegitimate.  Especially if there was a big discrepancy between Alto and the smaller school/schools. 

 

I agree.  West Sabine turned in a number that was 1/2 a student over placing them in D1 and in a district with Timpson, Garrison, Joaquin, Shelbyville, SA, and Grapeland.  Gonna be a tough 2 years for West Sabine, but they did the right thing.

[SwarmingOnEm]

22 hours ago, StillGreezy said:

Oh wow.  It ended up being 1 kid over?  So....basically they ARE 2ad2.  

Numbers are numbers and rules are rules. Tough pill, but we’re gonna choke it down, take our punishment and get through it. However, we ARE putting the same number of players on the football field regardless of that 1 student. This will just give a couple schools their “excuse” when we spank them. Whatever makes them feel better……

[Mavchamp]

1 hour ago, JBizzle said:

I forgot that some of you think making the playoffs as a 4 seed is a huge deal to be celebrated.

We are 40-6 in district since 2015….. four district titles. No fourth place finishes.  Nice try though.

I forgot some people think certain programs are above the rules and make excuses when they get caught. 

[PostSurfer]

Yes, the football players are the victims of this corrective action. 

Maybe some of the local posters can share some insight but the timeline of this debacle is what stands out to me.

I'm not a fan of anonymity without credibility, the allegation was proven to be true. The superintendent took responsibility and (as mentioned in the hearing) provided some information to the committee that was not openly discussed. The committee accepted her "guilty plea" and a corrective action was imposed. I believe the committee was astonished as to how this went down and the lack of oversight up the admin. chain. 

AD/HFB left, counselor gone, anonymous letter in April, Hearing in August. Any sense of urgency seemed to slow after each event.

I'm not a local but close enough to see the headlines of the devastating events that have happened in Alto. My question for the locals is does Alto have the leadership at every level to overcome these events and is everyone "rowing the boat" in the same direction?