Is it Unfair for Public High Schools to Compete with Private High Schools for State Championships?

It's state playoff time in high school basketball, which means it is win or go home for every team. In North Carolina, they divide the state in half and have an East and West regional, with winners from both sides advancing to a championship game.

Last night was the West semifinals for 1-A girls teams, the classification for the schools with the fewest number of people enrolled. I covered Bishop McGuinness, the two-time defending state champion in 1-A, as they squared off against Robbinsville, a team that entered the contest having won 11 straight games.

In North Carolina, high school basketball is separated into (mainly) two areas. The NCHSAA covers mostly public high schools, while the NCISSA covers mostly private schools. Bishop McGuinness recently entered the NCHSAA, although they are still a private school.

Now, in an ideal world kids go to public school in the district which they live. Some districts have rules which allow kids from other areas to attend. And we all know that illegal recruiting goes on in public schools all over the country. We recently had a situation in Charlotte where a high school football team had to forfeit 13 wins this season because the assistant coach helped to recruit students to come to the school to play football.

Private schools are a different beast. Mostly, if you can afford to go to the school, they do not care where you live. In terms of athletics, that is potentially a huge advantage for a private school over a public school. Because they can theoretically recruit top athletes from all over to come play at their school and not face any penalties like a public school would.

The best high school team I saw play this year was the Christ School Greenies, which has more height than most mid-majors. Most of their height comes courtesy of one family, which has three boys on the team. The 6-10 senior on the team will be playing at Stanford next season. The 6-11 junior just committed to Duke. And the younger brother is already at 6-10. Christ School, which won the 3-A NCISSA, is located in Arden, North Carolina. The three tall brothers all came to the school by way of Indiana.

So, back to last night's game. Bishop McGuinness just overwhelmed the other team. They were up by 38 points midway through the third quarter when they called off the dogs and took out their stars. Bishop McGuinness, ironically nicknamed the Villains, made the other team look like it was made up of junior high school players. Robbinsville could not handle a press, could not get back on defense and when they did get a shot off, it was likely to get blocked.

It was just ugly.

During the game, I was impressed that the Robbinsville coach, Warren Knott, remained calm and did not attack the officials when calls went against him. After the game, I had a different opinion. After listening to him in the post-game conference, it is my belief that he never thought his team had a chance. He spent the majority of the time complaining about Bishop McGuinness' unfair advantage in being a private school in a public school league.

Here is a transcript from the post-game chat, in which Knott brought two of his players with him. There were half a dozen reporters there, along with representatives from the host school and a photographer. I was there to cover Bishop McGuinness and once I saw the direction the Robbinsville coach was headed in, I did not ask any of these questions. The reporter questions are paraphrased but the coach's responses are verbatim, except for leaving out some "umms" and "you knows".

Reporter - Were you surprised by the outcome?

Coach - No.

Reporter - Did you have any kind of scouting report?

Coach - I got stuff off the Internet. But when you're four hours away and have to travel so far, I just didn't get anything. The only thing I heard was they lost their starting point guard for the season so I thought that would be an advantage coming in.

The first three rounds of the state playoffs are held locally. The next two rounds are held in Winston-Salem for the West regional and Greenville for the East regional. Championship games are held at the Smith Center at UNC and Reynolds Coliseum at NC State.

Reporter - Were you surprised by the outcome?

Coach - Another thing I know about them is that they do recruit. Until the state does something as far as them recruiting, us true 1-A teams are not going to be able to beat them. We might beat them one out of 10 times but tonight obviously wasn't that one. But you play them 10 times as long as they're able to recruit they're probably going to beat you nine out of 10 times. That's just the facts and it's real tough for 1-A schools.

Reporter - Do you think participating here is good for schools from the mountains?

Coach - Sure, anytime you make it this far it's an honor and it's good for the program. But also, too, I'll give you an example. We come to a regional meeting and we drive four hours to the meeting and Bishop McGuinness drives 20 minutes to the meeting. To me that's not neutral. To me, why not hold it in Hickory or Asheville and let both teams drive two hours? To me, the state just caters to teams in this area and the poor mountain teams get left out to dry. I'm not just talking about mine, I'm talking about every mountain team out there, including Avery. Avery drove three-and-a-half hours for this meeting.

The NCHSAA is located in Chapel Hill. The regional games and meetings in Greenville and Winston-Salem are each roughly two hours away from Chapel Hill. There's very little chance that is going to change.

Reporter - Anything you as coaches can do to change this?

Coach - We tried, we tried, and I don't know if this is true but somebody said Bishop McGuinness made a quote, 'well put us wherever you want to.' Well, if they want to recruit but their enrollment is 1-A, why not put them in 2 or 3 or 4-A? If you want to give them the privilege to recruit that ought to bump them up at least one level. I don't think there's a lot of 2-A teams that want to play Bishop McGuinness to be honest with you.

Reporter - I don't think 3-A or 4-A teams want to either.

Coach - No, so I don't know if Bishop McGuinness said that. I don't know if that's a quote but that's what was said in our area in the mountains. It's been a big issue now, for this makes the third year. We'll see if they're back-to-back-to-back state champions in 1-A.

Reporter - Do you think they'll win it all?

Coach - If they play like they did tonight they will be. They were all over the floor trapping. In all honesty, I'm not taking anything away, they're a great team, they played hard defense. They played hard, they rebounded, they did everything they needed to do to win. The only difference is they have girls all over the state playing for them, or all over the area playing for them. If we could bring the best team from the mountains we might be able to compete.

Reporter - Do you think it's an unfair advantage?

Player 1 - Oh, definitely. I'm a senior and this was a great way to go out for me. But I don't want my underclassmen to have to go through this again.

Coach - I think they're going to realign here soon, the state is. But when they said it, I think it's for 10 years, if I'm not mistaken.

Reporter - Four, it's every four years.

Coach - Ok, every four years. If they realign and they still put bigger teams that don't need to be in 1-A then there you are at four more years.

Reporter - I don't think they'll put 'em anywhere besides 1-A. They play you based on enrollment.

Coach - The rulebook says public schools can't recruit. I can't go out and try to convince a girl from another school who's really good to come play for me. That's illegal. But Bishop McGuinness can do it and nothing is said about it. No sanctions are put on them or anything.

Reporter - Do you really think they're recruiting?

Coach - Well, they've got players that live in other counties. We represent our county but they got four, five girls that represent other counties around here.

Player 1 - Oh, yeah, if we could bring girls from other counties...

Reporter - It's possible for parents to bring kids here without being recruited.

Coach - Oh, sure, but I guarantee you I could have parents in our area to bring kids to Robbinsville to play ball. I can recruit through parents. I don't have to talk to kids to get girls to come play for me. I promise.

Reporter - To be the best, you've got to beat the best. Did you feel that way coming into tonight?

Player 2 - Oh, definitely. But I'm just proud to represent my county.

Player 1 - Yeah, I come from my county and...

Player 2 - I don't want to play for anyone else.

Reporter - Do you feel like you gave it your all tonight?

Player 1 - Yeah, I have two broken teeth. My two front teeth are kind of shattered right now.

Representative - Any more questions?

Reporters indicate no and thank the coach and the girls for showing up and they start to leave.

Reporter - Well said, coach.

Coach - Mason, I look forward to your article in the morning.

Reporter - Me, too.

Coach shouts something from down the hall and laughter breaks out.

Reporter - Did you hear what he said?

Reporter - Yeah, he said send me a copy.

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Knott has a point, and he has a reason to be upset. But there's a time and a place for everything. When you step on that court, you don't whine about the matchup, you don't give up. Instead, you try your best to win and play to the best of your ability. And when you talk to the media, you discuss the game that was just played, not any personal grudge you have with the system. The coach wanted us to be his lackeys, and carry his fight with the NCHSAA. I refused to do that. You can read my game story here.

To me, the worst thing was the carryover from the coach to his players. Obviously, this is a big issue, but the girls on his team just echoed what the coach said. Everyone is concerned about how kids look up to pro athletes but I think the affects of a coach in their everyday life is so much more profound.

And I'd rather the coach of my child's team teach them how to break a 1-3-1 zone press than teach them how to whine to the media how everything is so unfair.