City High

[srams21]

I see they are 0-5 this year and their offense is really struggling averaging just 8 ppg. What is going on there? I also looked at their remaining schedule and 0-9 might be a real possibility. Frankie or anyone else, has City High ever gone 0-9 or anywhere close to that in modern history (the last 30 years or so)?

 

[DSMan]

not sure. probably worst season since the pre-larry brown era.

 

[DogBoyRy]

I know alot of City fans fairly close to the program.
The true answer would get very ugly from a politcal correctness standpoint and what is happening in most of Iowa City (more City vs West) but let's just say the current student body hasn't bought into the football tradition. They have bought into wacky weed, poor school habits and hanging out.

 

[DSMan]

Originally posted by DogBoyRy:
I know alot of City fans fairly close to the program.
The true answer would get very ugly from a politcal correctness standpoint and what is happening in most of Iowa City (more City vs West) but let's just say the current student body hasn't bought into the football tradition. They have bought into wacky weed, poor school habits and hanging out.

I thought the IC Public Schools have the highest SAT scores in the state or close to it.

 

[On Wings of Eagles]

There wouldn't be any other schools in Iowa that would fall under your "true answer" analysis would there?

At least City had a great run in athletics and many programs for over a decade while many other schools have never had any success and remain miserable to this day when it comes to being competitive at a state level.

There are plenty of examples of schools/programs that have had winning streaks or eras of success and have fallen on hard times in recent years. It could be from a variety of reasons. I just don't see the need to try to put the descriptive face on it that you have and qualify it through your City fan resource.

 

[DogBoyRy]

Thanks for getting the PC part right.
To put it another way my ICHigh friends say their is as much talent walking the halls of a great school as ever.
They lack motivation for some reason.

Coaching and resources is not the problem.

 

[On Wings of Eagles]

Yeah, it's a tough situation. Many resources are in place for a lot of things but the necessary catalyst just isn't there for some reason. Students not feeling the need to be connected to the school through athletics or any other organization doesn't help. The academic penalty really reinforces the fact that it is a privilege to participate in sports. But I'm not sold on the 30 day penalty and the fact that if teachers are expected to modify and break up assignments into smaller chunks for some kids to be able to handle then why should there be a blanket penalty for all students. Maybe there's another way to keep kids engaged with shorter penalties and more frequent progress reports etc... rather than wait until the final grading period. I know, this creates headaches for coaches creating game plans, lineups etc... but if we want the kids available, then the carrot can't always be on such a long string.

 

[justhanginaround]

I taught/coached at a school that had 3 week grading periods, it did NOT improve a student's ability to stay eligible. In fact, it further enabled them. The school allowed a student to regain eligibility after one week if they were able to get their grades up to an "eligible" level. The students knew they would only have to sit out one week so the penalty wasn't harsh enough to make them put the time in. (The school had slightly more stringent eligibility requirements than the state required so the 3 week periods were for district standards only.)

 

[PNation]

I do think there are fewer and fewer kids that feel less connected to their school, not only in sports, but band, drama, all activities, it would be interesting to see how big of a drop in participation numbers there has been in just the last 10 years.

 

[cidhawkeye]

Part of creating the connection or motivation has to fall on the coaching staff. There are a lot of factors that go into it but that has been one that has been whispered about.

 

[On Wings of Eagles]

Ok, I'll go along with Justhanginaround. You are probably right; that the rewards aren't enough to outweigh the headaches. And I'll also go along with the fact that the coaching staff has to make it fun and challenging for the students that have an interest and can keep themselves eligible. Hopefully, that's why they are coaching.

However, I haven't heard anything about the parents of the students yet. Anyone willing to give them some/most of the credit for their son's success/failures? I'd probably put it at around 85-90%. How engaged the parents are k-12 and the importance/value they put on school and school activities has most everything to do with their kids' success. I'm not willing to make any excuses for them.

 

[justhanginaround]

100% agree.

 

[EagleHawk]

Regina must have stolen all the good players.

 

[BRANDONJ8]

will cedar rapids prairie vs city high tonight be a good game yes or no.

 

[cidhawkeye]

Actually players have left Regina to go play at City, reverse recruiting so to speak.

 

[iceland]

City hung on to beat Prairie 27-23 tonight, so they aren't completely dead yet. I am a City grad who played on great teams in the 90's so I have been around the program for almost 25 years. My dad still goes to almost every game. A lot of things have happened over the years. Even with the great teams in 2009-2010, City has generally not been AS good all the way back to 2002. They were 4-5 in 02 and 4-6 just two years ago.

Numbers have been relatively down for that whole period. They have not had the big squad sizes of CF, Bett, Valley, Ankeny etc. for a long time. I love the coaches there and think they are amazing coaches, but they still have the same core of coaches they have had since the 80s. Fairly soon a bigger change is going to have to come. Surprisingly, for such long time coaches they have not been conservative. Instead, I think they change almost too much. One year they run 95% of the time, another year they pass out of the spread most of the time. They've lost their identity for a while.

Their sophomore team is 6-0 this year even with some sophs up on the varsity so they ought to be better already next year. Playing CF, Bett and Ames to start the year sure didn't help this year. If they were playing Dav West, Waterloo West and Jefferson or something to open the year, things would be different right now. I'm not sure that provides an answer, but that is kind of the situation these days.