Speaking of spitting, who cleans those artificial turfs and those dugouts after those baseball games? I mean, HOLY SALIVA! This is as epidemic as the Great Flood! Noah , where’s that boat? Do they call SERVICEMASTER or STANLEY STEEMER? Who wants to slide into home plate after all of that expectorating? Call Heloise. Maybe she’s got a tip or two!
The Kansas State High School Activities Association is in the final throes of resetting how they classify schools for athletic competition. The latest guess is that, once again, it will favor the big schools and be the toughest on the smallest.The most logical thing won’t be done and that is to start at the top and assign the top 48 schools to 6A, the next 48 to 5A, the next 48 to 4A, the next 48 to 3A, the next 48 to 2A and equally divide the remaining into two classes of 1A.
The larger schools, and their coaches have lobbied against that. They like the smaller setup because it is easier to make an advance to the state tournament or to the state championship in football. Obviously, the fewer schools in a class, the less competition. The more appearances in the state tournament the better looking the resume’. Kansas has too many classifications. That needs fixed but that’s just “Spitting in the wind”.
Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right!”
The trend in collegiate conference realignment is to bigger. Bigger is not necessarily better. The Big Ten has 14 members. The Pac-10 is in the same boat. Ditto for the Southeastern Conference. Even the Atlantic Coast Conference has joined that fray. Only the Big 12-who has only 10 members- is spitting in the wind.
The trouble with mega-conferences is that never do all teams play all opponents. In fact, due to some regional rivalries, some teams go years without matching up against another opponent in football and almost never play a home and home series in basketball. The Big 10 has an 18-game conference schedule in basketball for a 14-team league. Thus, Michigan State and Michigan play only one time this upcoming season. Ditto Indiana and in-state rival Purdue.
Bigger is not better if we have to put up with this kind of schedule manipulation!
GANDI defined an expert as “a person who knows more and more about less and less until eventually he knows everything about nothing.” Hey, is he talking about me?
Big changes are coming to the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference . Beginning next year schools will be able to offer full scholarships to athletes instead of just the books and tuition grants that have been in place for decades. How will colleges decide who gets what and how much? It is going to make for some dicey financial meetings between the athletic departments and the schools’ administrations. It is also going to upgrade an already high level of athletic play in the community college ranks of Kansas. The talent levels will match those seen in the Power Five conferences at the 4-year institutions. Watch out Alabama!
Speaking of Alabama, yeah, they are once again the pre-season pick in college football. Fun in the Big 12 though as the smarties think Okie State will win out over the Sooners of OU. Kansas State is picked for third and Kansas? Well, the football geniuses want to know when basketball season starts. Look for coach David Beaty’s Jayhawks to take a giant leap forward this year. Trouble is, they’ve got to make a HUGE leap across a canyon that has been the gap between them and most of the Big 12.
Ah, Ann Landers. Don’t we miss her? She said, “The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven’t thought of yet!”
Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.
