Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - High School Sports

Nobody wins in a game like this.

The Pgh Public School District needs to pull the plug on its own section of the PIAA and join / merge with the WPIAL. The sooner the better. I'd even be happy with a staged merger, by school by sport.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - High School Sports: "Westinghouse 65, Oliver 6: The Bulldogs (22-3) reached the semifinals for the 20th consecutive year. Oliver (1-22) scored two points in the second half. This is the fifth time the Bears have finished a game in single digits.

I was thinking, it has to be tough to only score six points in a game and, moreover, to score in single digits five times in the same season. That said -- and I honestly mean this -- should Oliver get rid of its girls' basketball program?

By going 1-22 this season, the Oliver Bears have just finished a three-year span in which they went 4-63.

Yes, I am not kidding, 4-63."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not so sure about this. Any merger with the WPIAL would have to be done incredibly carefully to avoid a complete slaughter -- there are only maybe four city schools in select sports (basketball, track, swimming and maybe baseball) that can compete with the suburban schools on any level -- and can you imagine what would happen to City League football? Let's be honest: they'd be cannon fodder. While a championship title in the sheltered city league means very little at this point, I'd really hate to see the city schools falling to the bottom of the heap and losing all confidence when introduced into a hyper-competitive league like the WPIAL.

That said, I feel terrible for the Oliver girls. What a shame.

Mark Rauterkus said...

Of course. There would need to be great care and great respect for the programs, the teams, the sports and the relationships of all involved.

Yes, there are few teams in the city that can run with the big dogs. But, they need to do that more and more.

Other places need a heap of help.

But, often the school size is the wild card. Our kids can play Fort Cherry, Brentwood, and other smaller schools. Other programs can go toe-to-toe now.

I'd love to see this happen and even would LOVE to manage the merger among the programs.