Sunday's sports letters

Titles come from hard work, not legislation

To the editor:

The public school majority has decided to apply a multiplier to private/parochial school enrollment for determining classification for high school activities. For 20-plus years, I have heard the complaint that private schools win a disproportionate share of the state titles in various sports. I was lucky enough to coach a couple of those championship teams in the 1980s.

If the question is whether Ihad an advantage at Notre Dame that the public schools did not have, the answer is a resounding "yes." I had teams made up of players who played in the parochial league for the various Catholic grade schools in the area. We had many great volunteer coaches in those grade schools. My players learned the game from these wonderful men while each playing for a Catholic school.

I laughed when one of the rival public school coaches complained in the paper that they could have beaten us if the Ressel boys had come to their high school. My response then, as it is now, is that those boys learned to play in our system's grade school and not theirs. I had the odd thought that maybe they might want to work to develop the players in their own schools rather than covet the players in our schools. The facts then were as they are today.

Notre Dame Regional High School does recruit students. Some of them are athletes, but we give no merit-based financial aide. There are no basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, or track scholarships. Our players and their parents pay for their education here at Notre Dame. For many it is a great sacrifice to send them here. On the other hand, I believe that nearly all of the students in the public schools are on full scholarship.

Some believe that geographic boundary is the issue. I believe it is more a matter of where the students went to grade school. Our students overwhelmingly come from the Catholic grade schools. More than once I had to bite my lip and stay quiet when a public school person came into one of the Catholic grade schools to recruit students. I can assure you that there are more players who went to a Catholic grade school but play for a public high school than the other way around.

Even a casual observer should be able to notice that there are considerably more players going from one public school to another for athletic reasons than there have ever been who switched from a public school to a nonpublic one. I've even seen a boy get cut from the team at one public school on a Friday and make the team at a neighboring public school Monday.

So, is the 1.35 multiplier fair? The answer depends on what you are trying to correct. I believe that, as a coach at Notre Dame, I have several advantages. We have great grade school basketball programs for both boys and girls, but I no longer coach basketball.

Because parents pay tuition to send them here, we cannot afford to be mediocre in anything that we do. Our parents expect solid faith formation, great academics and discipline. And yes, that does spill over into athletics. Just as a parent paying tuition is likely to encourage and help their child in academics, the same is true in athletics. I am the first to admit that whatever success I have had as a coach is attributable to the great young men that I have had to work with.

Is it fair to allow a majority vote to shackle a minority? The answer is absolutely not, but history is full of examples where it has and does happen.

Will 1.35 equalize the number of championships between public and private? I suspect that the answer is no.

What else might be done to equalize the number of championships? I suspect that we might need multipliers added to enrollments for schools whose coaches go by the names Cookson, McFerren, Heeb or Grim.

You cannot legislate championships. Like most things in this capitalist system of ours, you get ahead through hard work and perseverance. One can either use their energy to get better or to make excuses as to why they failed. As for me, I plan to win another district title next year.BRAD WITTENBORN

Notre Dame Regional High School

Multiplier issue unfair, but we'll take 'em on

To the editor:

When I first heard about the multiplier vote passing I was furious. It wasn't fair when I first heard the news, and it still isn't. But as I read into this story, a famous quote came to mind: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog." With that in mind there is only one thing I can say about us playing 4A schools that are much larger than us.

Bring 'em on, we'll fight 'em with all we got.DAVID UNTERREINER

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