No football for Westview

[james_t]

EMMA — Westview school board members unanimously voted against adding a football program at Westview High School at a special meeting Tuesday.

http://www.fwdailynews.com/articles/...5988480191.txt

[Sugar Magnolia]

Just curious... if there are Westview students who want to play football (or any other sport that's not available,) are they given the option to try out for another county school's team?

[james_t]

I got the following response from staff writer Eric Fish:

The answer is no to this question. That was a threat of many parents at a
public hearing held by the administration last month on the matter of adding
a program. Many parents threatened to have their children go to Lakeland in
order to play football. That's their only option if their kid wants to play
high school football - go to school somewhere else.

[Sugar Magnolia]

I got the following response from staff writer Eric Fish:

The answer is no to this question. That was a threat of many parents at a
public hearing held by the administration last month on the matter of adding
a program. Many parents threatened to have their children go to Lakeland in
order to play football. That's their only option if their kid wants to play
high school football - go to school somewhere else.

That's kind of disturbing and confusing. A co-worker's son transfered from a school in Indy to a school in NE Indiana for his senior year (change of parental custody.) The school told him he was not allowed to participate on any of the sports teams until they produced documentation that he changed schools for a non-sports related reason. If he had enrolled there because he wanted to play baseball, or football, that reason alone would have disqualified him from being eligible.

In a day & age where we're trying to encourage kids to be healthy, stay active and stay out of trouble, it's pretty sad that the schools are limiting their ability to do just that.

Thank you James and Eric

[TheBigB]

They claim that cost wasn't their primary concern, but the article didn't mention the Title IX balance (which is a real issue, IMHO - you'd have to add at least two girls teams). But hurting other fall sports? I don't think there is a great overlap between tennis players and football (maybe a few boys would do both), and the decent cross country runners aren't likely to don football pads either.

Westview is an interesting case study. Even though they are larger than Fremont, and not that much smaller than Churbusco, Eastside, and Central Noble, they historically had a much smaller pool of available players - given the number of Amish students (I don't believe football is favored) and farm kids (it's busy in the fall).

I see that they said they'd consider it if enrollment reached 500. Is that ever likely to happen? Is Shipshewana the new Aboite Township?

[fought70]

everybody plays soccer at westview.

[TheBigB]

everybody plays soccer at westview.

I missed that one.

Without being overly blunt, has the Westview school district seen some of same demographical changes that the West Noble district has seen over the past 20 years, and are they looking towards that leading to an increase in the student population?

[joshpatterson]

Sugar Magnolia-

Here's the response I received from Bobby Cox, associate commissioner for the IHSAA for football, regarding your question:

"IHSAA by-laws provide that a student may only represent the school in
which he is enrolled and attending in interscholastic sports governed by
the Association."

So as was stated previously, in a word, no. No students enrolled at Westview are allowed to play football at another school.