Altoona HS is 2 hours and 12 minutes from Harrisburg and 2 hours and 15 minutes from Seneca Valley. You guys are SO wrong on this. Just admit defeat and move on. Altoona would be traveling roughly the same, maybe ever so slightly more in my league. State College is further east so a little more travel for them but they're going 1.5-2 hours now each way anyway. I dont know what is such a hard concept to grasp here. Altoona and SC may want to stay in that conference for other reasons, but saving 30 minutes to 1 hour each way on travel twice a year isnt one of them.
OT: WPIAL HS Sports are a mess
- Thread starter Fk_Pitt
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Yes, ask him specifically this:
1. Would you consider joining a league if that meant that you would have to travel about 30 minutes longer to your away games twice per year? Would those extra 30 minutes on a bus make it a no go?
State College is 97 miles away from Cumberland Valley, its longest road trip. The closest similar sized WPIAL school is Hempfield, 127 miles away.
I said, they aren't interested in the WPIAL. They play in a conference that has them in all sports. Not just football.
Then they should be in District 3. Allowing them to remain in District 6 and have an easier route to the state playoffs is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Really man? Canon Mac, probably their furthest road trip to a WPIAL school is 160 miles. Is that extra 60 miles, again, TWICE per season that big of a deal?
As I said with Altoona, if they want to play in a District 3 conference, they should be moved out of District 6 and have their path to the state playoffs come out of D3. No more "byes" to play the WPIAL champ to get to Hershey.
Yes, it is. Canon Mac 165 miles. Seneca Valley 164 miles. North Allegheny 153 miles. Mt. Lebanon 144 miles. Central Catholic 137 miles. Erie is nearly four hours away.
Carlisle 80. Harrisburg 88. Chambersburg 90. Central Dauphin East 90. Central Dauphin 92. Cumberland Valley 97.
The choice is easy.
Every rural district is guilty of the same thing in at least one classification. Partly why they're playing state playoff games while the WPIAL is still sorting things out. State College played two more state playoff games than MtLebo by the time they met in the final. The 6A WPIAL Championship is effectively a state quarterfinal game.
The Altoona, State College, McDowell, Erie regular seasons seem so pointless. Like 9 exhibition games then the Altoona/SC winner plays the McDowell/Erie winner for the right to play the WPIAL champ. If I was a player on that team, I would a million percent rather bus longer for 2 regular season games so I could be in a legit tournament if they, for some reason, wouldn't allow us in District 3.
How much different is it than being Aliquippa last year and yawning your way through your five section games to qualify for the playoffs?
Not teacher’s jobs. Administrator jobs & school board seats.
I would think there would be fewer teaching jobs, not necessarily by laying a lot off, but through attrition.
School board seats, yes. Administrators, no. You would have a lot more assistants
They are currently doing 4 hours round trip for football games. Are you still not getting this? Why is this is so hard for you?
AND ITS FOR TWO GAMES PER YEAR.
The kids will NOT die on the bus.
There are state laws and union contract language on class size. And a lot of districts have unfilled positions as it is. So if there were less classroom jobs, it'd be a very minimal decline. Most of the savings from a merger would be from administration, transportation, economies of scale.
That's true, but there is still likely to be a decline. I could imagine there'd be some special area teachers that have to change their positions due to limited options/opportunities.
Yeah Breezewood to dc or the outskirts like Rockville can be done in 90 minutes pretty easily
I would love for you to answer this question but you wont. Why is Altoona bussing 4 hours round trip to play in a Harrisburg league?
Because it's a much more pleasant trip than a four plus hour round trip to Pittsburgh. When is the last time you traveled into Pittsburgh from the East on a Friday afternoon?
OK, so you are going with kids sitting on a bus for 4 hours on TikTok would rather the bus be traveling east instead of west, even though they are on TikTok for the exact same amount of time? My God, you people.
Yes. Altoona, State College, Mifflin County and Williamsport are sticking together. Harrisburg makes much more sense.
Why would a student care about which direction a bus is going if they are on the bus the same amount of time?
Students don't make that call, do they? And like I said, you can get to Harrisburg a lot quicker than Pittsburgh from Altoona on Friday afternoons.
You said:
"Because it's a much more pleasant trip than a four plus hour round trip to Pittsburgh"
The time on the bus is the same. I didn't say students get to make the call. You gave a reason that refers to the bus riders (mostly students) having a much more enjoyable 2 hour ride east, as opposed to the same distance west. Because that made no sense, are you now saying that Altoona to suburban Pgh is significantly longer than Altoona to the Hbg area on Friday late afternoons? Its not but just wanted to see what you were going with.
I’m saying it takes much longer to drive to Pittsburgh from Altoona than it does to drive to Harrisburg. Parents drive to games to watch their kids play. It is significantly further for State College and Mifflin County.
I live in Johnstown. I would rather drive to the Harrisburg airport than the Pittsburgh airport.
Altoona will not be coming back to the WPIAL anytime soon.
I live in Johnstown. I would rather drive to the Harrisburg airport than the Pittsburgh airport.
Altoona will not be coming back to the WPIAL anytime soon.
Yeah, I guess there is no real good diagonal route between Pittsburgh and State College.
But I am sorry, I have driven those areas for years and no way, no how is Altoona to Harrisburg a better drive than Altoona to the Pittsburgh area. Now....if you are adding on the Squirrell Hill tunnel traffic on a weekday...maybe.
But no matter how you dice it, it is a 30 mile longer trip to Harrisburg. Also, I would much rather travel 22 in a straight shot than some of the possible weather affected areas starting around this time of year.
Yea, he's dead wrong on Altoona. Wished he would just admit it. The drive times are very similar even with very slight traffic to the Pittsburgh suburbs (they arent going into the city). State College and Mifflin County are different stories.
Honestly, what they SHOULD do is do away with districts in football altogether if they really need to have 6 classes. Just make conferences of 7-8 teams. There's about 90 teams in each classification. 8 conferences of 11-12 teams. 10 game regular season. Top 4 advance to state playoffs.
41 of the 90 teams are either in Philly city or District 1 (Philly suburbs). So essentially, you have:
4 Philly confernces
1 Western PA conference (NA, SV, CM, CC, Lebo, Allderdice, Butler, McDowell, Erie, Altoona, State College)
2 Harrisburg/South Central PA conferences in which Mifflin County is in. Its further south and east of State College
1 Northeast/North Central PA conference
Elite 8:
Philly vs Philly
Philly vs Philly
Western PA vs the western-most Harrisburg conference
Northeast PA vs the eastern-most Harrisburg conference
Perhaps, the Western PA vs Harrisburg Elite 8 game could be played at Acrisure along with the 1A-5A Elite 8 games, which would all be champions of Western PA conferences.
If Butler and Allderdice opt to drop out of the PIAA in football and play independent schedules, so be it. Conferences will have to readjust
You've spent several pages arguing for a hypothetical that won't happen. Congratulations on that.
I am not sure what brought about "6A", though I am sure it involved whining. The problem is, it does not work for the Western Part of the state. Either as we discussed ad nauseum, the refusal of mergers and the decline in youth population, there aren't just enough schools that qualify as "6A". Which is a shame, because it really has caused further decline in interest of local HS football.
I hate to be the guy "when I was in school" but "when I was in school" and the powers were like Penn Hills, Gateway, Mt. Lebo, USC, schools which are now 4A regularly played the larger schools. And the largest schools then, Butler, Hempfield, Norwin, never really dominated anyways.
When they made that decision, I believe that Pennsylvania had the largest enrollment disparities in its biggest classification of any state in the country. Penn Hills was a AAAA school with a male enrollment of about 400 students. North Penn outside of Philadelphia was also a AAAA school, but with a male enrollment of about 1,600 students.
Schools like Hempfield, Baldwin, Norwin, and Pine-Richland are close enough in enrollment to play against other 6A schools in the WPIAL. Avonworth and Mars are two schools that are growing in size, but most of the others are shrinking. A lot of these A schools need to merge with other schools like was mentioned earlier in this thread. The state needs to step in if the schools don’t do it on their own.
The truth of the matter is........these small schools, especially in populated areas, should merge for academic opportunity and best use of tax dollars/resources.
Just like police departments, fire departments, street departments and governments. Just for everyone to have their own "private" club is not a good enough reason to not do some of these mergers, both school district and community.
Somehow, Clairton, Duquesne, and South Allegheny, and East Allegheny all exist within 8 or so miles of each other. Also 5 different school districts for a combined 200 kids per class in Monessen/Charleroi/Cal/Bentworth/Beth-Center. That should be 1 4A HS
1
However, the rise of that program coincided with the introduction of the Philly private schools which have raped district 1 of it's talent.
