RichlandsAlum

"Loud noises!!!"

"Loud noises!!!"

"Loud noises!!!"

How long it take you to google what Alum is? Lol

My name is related to my place of origin and my unnatural fascination with hydrated potassium aluminum sulfate.  (Not really.  But a more interesting answer than the fact that I just ain't creative.)

My bad. I meant House Creek. We were a couple blocks in the other direction (off 42nd Avenue) last year. Noticed more sharks in general on the ocean side last summer than I ever have before.

I'd be (very pleasantly) surprised if Richlands were to win this one in a blowout.  Pretty sure that Buckingham hasn't faced a defense like the Blues yet, but I'm not sure that will tip the game.  A lot of teams in Central Virginia this season seem to play the football version of Paul Westhead's "run and gun" game -- very porous defense but very explosive offense, with an apparent goal of having the last possession to win the game.
 
Unless the linebackers are able to shrug off zone blocking and make short yardage stops, the Blues better be well conditioned and in good enough shape to run a lot of full field sprints.  
 
And if Richlands wins on Friday, chances are very good that they'll face exactly the same kind of team next week at Appomattox.
 
Just my two cents, of course.

RichlandsAlum, I like your comment about the possibility of blackballing a district team because it has happened before. In fact, I was thinking about starting a thread concerning this very topic.
 
In 1978 and 1979, Martinsville was essentially blackballed from the Piedmont District.  There was an old provision in the VHSL stipulations that allowed teams to compete for a district championship if they played all but one of their district opponents.  Guess which opponent was omitted from EVERY Piedmont District school during those years?
 
The theory behind the antiquated rule is that is was done in the segregation area in an attempt to not segregate athletics.
 
Whatever the reason, it certainly did happen.  The schedule was brutal for Martinsville.  As a true AA school, they had to fill out their schedule with very strong AAA teams such as GW-Danville, Patrick Henry-Roanoke and Pulaski.  Some of the strong AA teams that they were able to play included William Byrd and Southampton High.  Martinsville's JV and 8th grade teams followed a similar schedule as the varsity (not the exact same teams).  As an 8th grade player on one of those teams, it was both fun and very, very challenging.  We got to miss a little bit of school as we were going to Roanoke or Lynchburg to play but the opponents were very good.
 
Anyway, the old bylaw/stipulation was abolished but not before a travesty had already taken place.  In 1979, Martinsville did not make the playoffs.....however, their resume included wins against Southampton (the AA State Champ in 1979) and PH-Roanoke who was AAA runner up that year.
 
I still try to remember that high school athletics are supposed to be for the kids and to benefit of the players....I think sometimes, we adults get too carried away about sports. In 20 years, our kids aren't going to remember the score of every single game. They will however, remember working together and sacrificing for a common cause.  If they are lucky, they will have a chance to play on a good team at some point.  I just hope that we adults provide an environment that our children will look at fondly years after school is over.

Getting back to what I think might be germane to the topic of this thread.....
 
The primary value of the "district" is its ability to provide a guaranteed minimum number of games for its membership.  And at least from 1970 until the recent reorganization, the district was the essential functioning unit of the overall competitive system.  Yet the VHSL appears to have completely discounted these facts and washed its hands of any real attempts to regulate the districts in a meaningful manner.
 
The biggest concern I've always had about the "conference" situation is that the VHSL never set any mechanism in place to compel conference members to schedule regular season games against one another.  Seeding the postseason based on ratings criteria is fine as long as all variables are equal.  What happens when one school finds itself "blackballed" (for whatever reason) by other area schools to such a degree that it cannot assemble a schedule that is comparable to its other conference mates?  A bit far fetched, but certainly within the realm of possibility.

Great example. 
 
There's also the matter of genetics and physical form.  Nobody seems to want to acknowledge it, but it's probably the single biggest determinant for placement of athletes.  Peoples is actually a good example there as well.  As much attention as he attracted from recruiters based on his pure effort, he probably would have had a lot more offers if he were a few inches taller.  A 5'8" running back is not an obvious fit for very many Division I offensive systems.  Fork Union also probably gave him a more compelling venue in which to demonstrate that he could perform against potential Division I talent.
 
As much as I dig Gladwell, I think that his argument in "Outliers" is applicable to children in youth sports -- particularly in the very beginning stages.  But its utility does diminish significantly beyond that -- and there seems to be no applicability for it to the academic setting (as evidenced by the excellent link you shared).

Great example. 
 
There's also the matter of genetics and physical form.  Nobody seems to want to acknowledge it, but it's probably the single biggest determinant for placement of athletes.  Peoples is actually a good example there as well.  As much attention as he attracted from recruiters based on his pure effort, he probably would have had a lot more offers if he were a few inches taller.  A 5'8" running back is not an obvious fit for very many Division I offensive systems.  Fork Union also probably gave him a more compelling venue in which to demonstrate that he could perform against potential Division I talent.
 
As much as I dig Gladwell, I think that his argument in "Outliers" is applicable to children in youth sports -- particularly in the very beginning stages.  But its utility does diminish significantly beyond that -- and there seems to be no applicability for it to the academic setting (as evidenced by the excellent link you shared).

I agree with the entire post for the most part.  The Outliers is a good read but I don't agree with all of it.  Steven Peoples graduated from Galax at 17.  Would an extra year in high school benefited him?  The year he spent at Fork Union was much more a benefit than an extra year at Galax could ever have been.

Depends on the kid and the specifics of the situation.  And that would be a trite statement on my part except for the fact that public education is run as a "one size fits all" industry.
 
From an academic perspective, folks like Malcolm Gladwell (in his book "Outliers" -- which is an excellent read) make a strong case for the advantage possessed by the oldest kids within any particular system.  But I also have firsthand experience on the other side.  Given the date on which her birthday falls, my wife was always one of the youngest members of our class in high school and in college.  She went to Tech at the age of 17 and wound up graduating first in her department within the Pamplin College of Business.
 
I do tend to agree (at least philosophically) with sixcat about holding a child back for athletic purposes, particularly in a public school setting.  If a child truly has the physical potential to succeed at the next level but simply lacks some form of "seasoning," then there are products available which are frankly superior to an extra year within the local public school.  I don't have data at hand to support this statement, but I'm betting that the post-grad guys at Hargrave are still getting better offers than most of the kids who repeat 8th grade within the Hometown High School system.  If it's possible to be objective, a kid with Division III level ability probably doesn't see much benefit to any kind of "redshirt" situation -- and it might even be better to counsel those students to focus on preparation for life after their playing days are over.

"Red-shirting" is a soapbox issue for me.  My daughter is the youngest fifth grader in the Galax City Public School System.  She certainly was not that in kindergarten.  Most of the kids she started kindergarten with have been held back if they weren't started a year late to begin with for future athletic purposes.  It is a ridiculous practice that affects the academic achievement of some kids.  We are starting to learn the long term affects of this practice through studies being done at institutions like Princeton, Harvard and Stanford.  I disagree with holding kids back wholeheartedly!
 
Kids who aren't stimulated and challenged tend to lose critical thinking skills.  Passive brag from a proud dad but the youngest fifth grader in the entire school system made perfect scores on all three of her SOL's this spring.  SOL's will do nothing to help my daughter get into college but it is the system we have. 
 
Simply put, if parents expectations of their kids academic achievements were as focused as their expectations of their kids athletic achievements, we wouldn't need SOL's or any other government enforced educational system.
 
Sorry, rant over!

I'm just floored at that. The time investment to do that for over 100 schools (at this point) must be astronomical.

My records are very close.  In fact, there are only six seasons' worth of difference in my account and this one as follows:
 
1926  I've got 5-1-0 (including a 26-20 win over the Bluefield College Reserves and a win against Graham -- but with no score)
1927  I've got 6-2-1
1928  I've got 1-2-0 (19-0 win over Grundy)
1929  I only had 3-0-0
1930  I only had 3-1-0
1941  I've got 6-1-3 (with scores for all 10 games, although I may have committed an error in transcription)
 
Combining the info that Bluefield researcher posted in addition to what I was lacking, I show the Blues with an all-time record of 503-353-34.  (Also budges Ernie Hicks up to 169 wins, which puts Mance in a statistical tie once again.  And the current skipper probably needs to break 185 to have any level of absolute certainty about establishing the new benchmark.)
 
Thanks a bunch to Bluefield researcher for this information.  I'd love to swap info with that poster -- or anyone else who might be interested.  There is a gap of information within the first decade of the program that could still probably be filled in with the right access to newspapers, yearbooks, and personal recollections.
 
EDIT -- I responded before I read through the complete thread asking for private messages instead of posts.  Sorry about that.  Although my two cents is that it's better to have as many sets of eyes on this as possible, and that's impossible with PM.  I agree with concerns about clutter, but a message board format is already kind of messy.  Anybody willing to put together a web site that can serve as a specific repository for this type of stuff?  (I'd volunteer, but my own development experience is about 20 years old and that was with early HTML.  Pretty sure I'm out of my depth.)

My records are very close.  In fact, there are only six seasons' worth of difference in my account and this one as follows:
 
1926  I've got 5-1-0 (including a 26-20 win over the Bluefield College Reserves and a win against Graham -- but with no score)
1927  I've got 6-2-1
1928  I've got 1-2-0 (19-0 win over Grundy)
1929  I only had 3-0-0
1930  I only had 3-1-0
1941  I've got 6-1-3 (with scores for all 10 games, although I may have committed an error in transcription)
 
Combining the info that Bluefield researcher posted in addition to what I was lacking, I show the Blues with an all-time record of 503-353-34.  (Also budges Ernie Hicks up to 169 wins, which puts Mance in a statistical tie once again.  And the current skipper probably needs to break 185 to have any level of absolute certainty about establishing the new benchmark.)
 
Thanks a bunch to Bluefield researcher for this information.  I'd love to swap info with that poster -- or anyone else who might be interested.  There is a gap of information within the first decade of the program that could still probably be filled in with the right access to newspapers, yearbooks, and personal recollections.
 
EDIT -- I responded before I read through the complete thread asking for private messages instead of posts.  Sorry about that.  Although my two cents is that it's better to have as many sets of eyes on this as possible, and that's impossible with PM.  I agree with concerns about clutter, but a message board format is already kind of messy.  Anybody willing to put together a web site that can serve as a specific repository for this type of stuff?  (I'd volunteer, but my own development experience is about 20 years old and that was with early HTML.  Pretty sure I'm out of my depth.)

I had to resurrect this thread due to last nights events.  Thanks for the opportunity by starting this thread GMan!
 
My 7 year old daughter plays soccer in the Galax recreation department 8u league.  Last night, a dad for the opposing team paced the sidelines the entire game screaming at his son in such a fashion several parents called local police.  One comment struck a nerve with me and I politely asked him to "sit down and allow the rest of us to enjoy our children running around enjoying themselves".  He didn't really respond and repeated the offensive comment, "don't you let that f*&king Mexican take the ball away from you, kick his ass".  I wasn't as polite the second time, positioning myself between him and the field so he couldn't see or concentrate on what was going on.  Others got involved and began to embarrass his family so his wife and daughter started arguing with him.  He finally sat down and shut up.
 
It was a shameful experience I had to share.  It was a great teachable moment for our two daughters, however.  We had a nice conversation at home following the game last night.

Looks like the Intracoastal Waterway side of Cherry Grove to me (just a guess). Close to the pier, but on the other side of the island/peninsula. Quite a few sharks around the pier, though -- especially when the fishermen are active.

Tazewell had a nice 6 game streak in the series from 1985 to 1991 -- and that was particularly frustrating for those of us on the Richlands side who experienced it directly. But it takes a large stretch of logic to try to equate that with the Blues' current and ongoing mastery of the doggies. Sad but true for both of us in this particular instance.

Tazewell had a nice 6 game streak in the series from 1985 to 1991 -- and that was particularly frustrating for those of us on the Richlands side who experienced it directly. But it takes a large stretch of logic to try to equate that with the Blues' current and ongoing mastery of the doggies. Sad but true for both of us in this particular instance.

Hmmm....  Now trying to think of a catchy thread title for a post that I can use to manipulate the stock market.

Hmmm....  Now trying to think of a catchy thread title for a post that I can use to manipulate the stock market.

Hmmm....  Now trying to think of a catchy thread title for a post that I can use to manipulate the stock market.