Van wrote:Terry in Crapchester wrote:The number of sports "kids" play is wholly irrelevant to this discussion. Most "kids" won't be playing Division 1 level football, or any other sport for that matter. And that holds true regardless of where you live.
It also holds true that every single person who plays D1 football is/was a kid.
What is relevant is the number of sports that elite athletes play. In New York, they are encouraged to play multiple sports. I could be wrong about this, but I believe that in most other states, elite athletes are encouraged to focus on one sport.
What on earth are you basing this on? In a warm-weather state like California do you think elite athletes don't play other sports besides football? Have you seen how many of USC's players over the years also ran track, for instance?
John Elway, noted football player, was also known to have played a bit of baseball as well.
You're making the argument something it's not. As my first post said, it goes to the culture. Virtually every elite athlete in New York is encouraged to play a sport in every season.
Are you telling me that many (not all, but many) of the elite football players in California are not encouraged to focus on football?
Lacrosse is a non-starter why? Because you said so?
Because it's not a choice between being a star football player or playing lacrosse for enough kids that it would amount to a hill of beans. Lacrosse is a sport played at a serious level only in select communities, and no one else cares. Football isn't suffering from lacrosse-drain.
There are a lot more kids playing Division I lacrosse than you realize. There are only about 60 or so Division I lacrosse programs in the country, but that's about the same number as for hockey.
Who gives a fuck? Football isn't suffering from hockey-drain either. Jesus, could your arguments be any more provincial?
You were the one who brought hockey into the discussion, remember?
New York didn't have a state school competing at the Division 1-A level until 1999, and still doesn't have a state school competing at the BCS level. New York is, far and away, the most heavily populated state about which that claim can be made. Massachusetts is the closest competitor in that regard.
WGARA?
Nebraska has managed to become a football power, and they have a population that's about the same as one ghetto in a single NYC borough.
Why not Syracuse? Who said it has to be a state school?
Offhand, the only states I can think of where the most successful 1-A football program is at a private school are Indiana (ND), California (USC), Massachusetts (BC), New York (Syracuse), and, for a time (although no longer) Florida (Miami) and Utah (BYU). In every other state with at least one school competing at the 1-A level, the most successful football program is at a state school.
That point notwithstanding, are you familiar with Syracuse athletics? Basketball is kingpin there.
And while we're kinda sorta on the subject, let's take a look at the Division 1-A football schools where basketball is king, shall we? Off the top of my head, we have . . .
Arizona
Cincinnati
UConn
Illinois (??)
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisville
Maryland
New Mexico
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Pitt (more recently, although a bit more debatable from an historical standpoint)
Syracuse
UCLA
UNLV
Virginia
Notice a similarity here? It's certainly not geography, so let me fill you in as to what it is.
None of these schools is anything remotely approaching a football power. Yeah, some of them might have the occasional 9-3 season here or there, but none of them is ever going to seriously contend for a national championship (yeah, Pitt did win one in our lifetime, but like I said earlier, Pitt is a relatively recent addition to this group). Other than that, the closest thing on this list to a sustained national power is UCLA. And most of the time, they're not even the best football team in their own city (although they are better than Cal most of the time).
That is why Syracuse is not a football power. How does Nebraska's basketball team usually fare?
7-game regular season in New York. How, exactly, is that a non-starter?
As if Ohio would let such silly impediments become "problems." If places that are colder than NYC can have normal-length football seasons, why can't NY?
The issue has more to do with the start of the football season than the end of it. Like I said, school doesn't start in New York until after Labor Day. They won't start the high school football season before school is back in session -- in fact, I don't think they could do that, legally, even if they wanted to.
Also, the sectional/state playoffs run for a rather lengthy period of time -- about six-seven weeks all told (three weeks for sectionals, then three-four for state playoffs). Of course, with each successive week, fewer and fewer teams are playing (sin, you know who). And high school basketball coaches have successfully lobbied to have the state football playoffs concluded by Thanksgiving weekend.
Short of giving them the finger, there's no way to extend the season later. The only way to extend it would be earlier, but that would require changing the school calendar.
He's posting under Schmick.