Arkansas Activities Association - who needs to be fired??

[stevo98]

In regards to the recent conference changes, I have a few comments, suggestions, and complaints. 

First of all, I don't understand the 1.75 rule put on private schools.  While I never attended a private school, it seems to me that the students put their shoes on in the morning just like a student would from a public school.  Is the AAA trying to say that kids attending private schools are 175% better than those at public?  It appears to me in general, parents that put their kids in private schools push their kids a little harder to be successful in academics as well as sports.  I understand that a select few private schools take advantage of recruiting or "foreign exchange program", but not all private schools should be punished.

In football, the smaller schools that have been forced to play in bigger conference are going to see their students get hurt.  A lot of the current AA schools have athletes playing both offense and defense.  When these schools are matched up against larger teams, a parent is going to witness their child get injured.  I would not wish this on anyone, but it will happen.

The geographic alignment of the new conferences is absolutely horrible.  It is very obvious that a map of Arkansas was not used, during the process of aligning the new conferences.  The newspaper says schools like Little Rock Christian and Siloam Springs are going to be traveling 200+ miles to play each other.  They are not the only schools traveling long distances.  Take a look at the new class in AAAA that consist of Arkansas Baptist, CAC, Oak Grove, De Queen, Ashdown, Mena, Fountain Lake, and Nashville.   These schools are all going to be traveling 140 - 180+ miles sometimes twice a week to play games. This is ridiculous!  Students are going to be missing school to leave early for games and they are going to get home late on school nights.  Schools and parents are going to spend a lot of money on fuel to travel to the games.  This does not benefit one person or school by realigning the districts and conferences. 

To sum things up, I believe the AAA had the right idea to segment schools according to their respective size.  However, there is extremely too much emphasis on size and not enough on location.  Don't draw the line on the size of schools so "black and white."  The best example I can think of, besides the Little Rock schools, is El Dorado High and Camden Fairview.  While El Dorado is slightly larger, they are only 30 minutes apart and they have been playing each other since their schools were established.  If you take a look at the history of their sporting programs, I don't think El Dorado has been dominant.  These two schools are no longer in the same conference.  Does this make sense?  Size should not be as big of a factor as the locations of the schools.  It is time for the AAA to admit they are messing up a good thing. 

Sorry for the long post, what does everyone else think??

[hoghigh]

Hum, let me think about it.

[Big Papa Satan]

who needs to be fired??

Lance Taylor.  He's the biggest idiot at the AAA, and that's saying something.

[Big Papa Satan]

yup, he went from basketball coach at greenwood one year, to principle at batesville the next, to one of the big dogs at aaa? WTH?

My issue with Taylor is that he's the one that pulls the trigger on drawing up the conferences.  Said "you can't start in the middle and draw up conferences, you have to start at the corners".  Dumbest logic ever.

We need a Central conference in AAAA, and this dumbass refuses to do it.