Originally posted by On Wings of Eagles:
Larger schools sometimes means fewer opportunities for the masses in some sports (and other extra-curricular activities). There are plenty of kids at larger schools that could play varsity in any sport at a smaller school. Basketball probably has the narrowest bottle neck of any sport past the junior year when it comes to student interest vs. allowable participation. There seems to be plenty of opportunities at the lower levels for most sports in larger schools of Iowa but once they get to their junior year it starts getting pretty competitive for playing time especially in the ball game sports. On the flipside, some larger schools are consistently never heard from in any sport which I find rather sad. Not sure what to attribute that to.
Many kids that don't stick with it through their senior year could probably play varsity for a lot of the other schools in the state. IMO, not having Mega-Schools helps in this regard among many other logistics when it comes to developing comprehensive athletic programs and building a school community vs. a place where a lot of people congregate for a few hours a day and have no real connection to their school.
How many empty gymnasiums/football stadiums are there around the state in the larger schools on a weekly basis? Many smaller schools reflect that school activities are an important part of their community and even if they aren't any good at whatever sport, there is always a lot of pride and connection made in support of their kids. A Friday night BB game in a smaller school always seemed to be better attended than at a larger school even at those that are always competitive in the regular season.
There are about 3 different classifications of a school/athletic department across the state that I visualize;
1. Schools with history and tradition and always competitive and have enthusiastic support with resources.
2. Schools with everything you would need in place but don't find a way to get over the top for whatever reason.
3. Schools that are not always a positive environment that are tough to get moving in the right direction for whatever reason.
The size of the school population never really seemed to be what's at the heart of the first classification. I don't think it's fair to put all the blame on parents or culture. I do feel like school leadership is a major factor in the success or failure in how the community interacts with and supports their programs regardless of the size of the school. Given time, I've seen some pretty amazing leaders build the right environment in some of the harshest conditions so I know it can be done. It's those dynamic leaders that are committed to a community for the duration of their career that make this happen. Not the ones that are just looking at a community as a stepping stone to a better situation. Like coaching, you do your best when you don't have the table set for you already. That's if you have a positive attitude toward what you are doing.
A big part of the deal at smaller schools, whether they're competitive or not, is that they are in smaller communities. In those "everybody knows everybody" environments, people will come out to support the kids (even if they don't have kids of their own in school), simply because they know the kids who are playing. At some 4A schools, you don't even know all the people in your class, much less the entire school. You could easily meet a dozen new people every day for weeks, if not longer. It's tougher to drum up serious support when the players are total strangers to so many others in the school district.
As for why some large schools never seem to have success in any sports, most of that comes down to resources. The DSM city schools can't hope to compete with the suburban metro schools in terms of facilities, etc. The money just isn't there. Sure, they'll compete from time to time, but they're usually pretty special instances (DSM North basketball, DSM East baseball, Lincoln football in the Bernstine/Robinson days, etc.). I'm still relatively new to the metro area, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong here, but the only consistently strong city school program I can think of is Roosevelt's girls track team.
The Council Bluffs schools suffer from a general lack of talent. SW Iowa struggles to compete in most sports, regardless of class, with a few exceptions like CBSA (in a few sports). Other schools down there have runs of maybe 5 years or so before falling back (Lenox football/baseball comes to mind). It's just not a very talent-rich portion of the state, south of I-80 and west of I-35. Honestly, the south central and southeast portions of the state aren't all that strong, either. I don't feel like going through the numbers, but I would bet you that a big majority of the state champions from every sport come from schools north of/right on I-80.
The schools on that kind of stand alone in the CIML (Ames, Mason City, Fort Dodge, Marshalltown, Ottumwa) tend to struggle in comparison to the metro schools, IMO, because they are isolated. Whether you believe it's recruiting or not, transfers between the metro schools tend to stack the suburb schools. Kids are transferring to better schools that are just across town. They aren't transferring to schools that are 30+ miles away. That doesn't mean those other schools can't have a ton of success, but it's usually only when a special group comes through like Barnes/McDermott, Straub/Kwah-Mensah/Shane/Brammer, etc. They don't typically build consistently strong programs like Valley, Dowling, etc.
