Private and parochial schools have been mocked for much of the three decades that we've been involved in covering and promoting athletics about the number of state champions there are for any given sport.
Let's just take football, for example, TAPPS will have seven, the SPC two, TCAF two, Homeschool one, T-CAL at least one, TCSAAL one and TAIAO who knows for sure.
Look, we've done everything we possibly can to advance the causes of every program that is not participating as a UIL member and even push some Houston Strake Jesuit and Dallas Jesuit because they're still private and parochial schools at the end of the day.
They just got special approval 20 years ago to be part of the UIL.
To be upfront, I - Jon Walk - finish line announce the TAPPS state cross country meet for the organization, take great pride in it and it is something that I didn't pursue; however, I work hard to represent the organization in a highly professional way, like I do for The Woodlands High School, Sam Houston State and the UIL who I do other work for.
TAPPS has done an excellent job the last 10 to 12 years of elevating its event production in all activities, both athletics and fine arts.
They've created opportunities where they never existed before.
However, they've recently outkicked their coverage just a bit.
Take Monday and Tuesday's Team Tennis Championships.
All of the social media promotion of the event states "Championships."
But, it doesn't count in the Henderson Cup point standings at all, just like Match Play Golf and Lacrosse, and even Field Hockey, which does have semifinals and a championship game.
(We double checked. None of them are there.)
A post on the TAPPS blog states that the event is the "Team Tennis Showcase".
We've seen one school state accurately that they were the Pool X - there wasn't an X; just chose a letter for an example - champions, while two schools proudly crowed that they were state champions.
So you mean to tell me that TAPPS crowned seven state champions -- three from the large schools on Monday and four from the small schools on Tuesday?
Every school that participated had three matches - one of the pools only had three teams and only played two - and didn't face anybody from any of the other pools.
So you want for me to accept your spinning the fact that your team is a state champion?
Sorry, that's a level of hype that can't just simply go unchecked in some form.
Does the organization want to create excitement for the kids?
Absolutely, you bet. We've had those conversations with the leadership and staff. They love what they're able to do for the kids - and what the membership pushes them to do.
Heck, that's why I do what I do at the finish line at the state cross country meet. I want that finish line experience to be special for as many youngsters as I can make it be for.
However, communication has to be more clear as to what does or does not continue an official state championship or not. (I've shared this; therefore, this post isn't a total surprise.)
If that is or was done, and then the school spins it in some other fashion, well, that's on the school then - and that, unfortunately, plays into the "everybody gets a medal" mentality that is so prevalent in sports today.
We see it in cross country season when a team doesn't run in a very large meet's elite race (because their runners aren't fast enough to be in that field), but in another varsity race that is most well-suited to where that team is competitively.
And then they do well in that race.
However, the social media managers or coaches will say that they finished 3rd at this large meet, making it - without appropriate qualification - sound as if they were third in the elite race.
We'll even see that the post states that the meet has over 1,000 runners. Maybe so, but it doesn't mean that the team's runners were the 15th through 21st best runners of all of those 1,000.
When I see stuff like this, to me, it is almost like distorting the gospel message by adding something to scripture.
Bottom line is this: We want to see efforts by all schools and student-athletes celebrated ... but accurately.
No comments:
Post a Comment