Section 1 shakeup could be coming
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- December
- 26
The budget crunch is bad and could get worse.
In anticipation, Section 1 is considering a proposal that would align schools in leagues based on geography — not enrollment or competitiveness — that will go into effect next school year if it is approved as expected.
Harold Gutmann has more details today in The Journal News and on LoHud.com. “Here’s the link to the story.”:http://www.lohud.com/article/20081226/SPORTS02/812260356/-1/SPORTS&referrer=NEWSFRONTCAROUSEL
Let’s hear your thoughts.
This entry was posted
on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 7:47 pm by Joe Lombardi. 
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I think its a good idea In saving money but I can’t see a
large school being parred up with a small school, that would not be fair. I think the way it is now Section 1 is way out of balance In that you have most of the stronger
teams all In the larger schools and the smaller schools are
by far much weaker overal. To make things fair and give better overal balance to both Divisions In Section 1, I would raise up the enrollment level so that schools having under 1,000 kids would qualify as a small school.
The 600 cutoff is a state thing not sectional and is based on the average enrollement statewide. In the southern part of the state (Secs 1,9,11,8) the small schools are usually of a lower caliber than the larger schools. In the other sections the small schools competer and in some cases are better than the large schools. In the south there are alot more large schools than small but in the north some sections have more small schools or are balanced.
what
From the Article I believe Football will not be affected.
Being a wrestler competing in the early 1970’s, this is just a throwback to what was leagues up until the late 70’s.
The UWPL in the 70’s had Mahopac, Carmel, Brewster, Hen Hud, Somers & JJCR based on geographical location. It will revive more “cross town” rivals. I was never a big fan of putting the Hudson River between competitors with the realignment of Sect One. No one likes change, but cost savings and building a bigger fan base may result.
This likely wouldn’t effect wrestling as all of the leagues are already geographically based and the large/small school sectional split is a NYS alignment. Not sure how this affects all of the other sports. The power lax teams will still have those tough non-league games but I would think you will see some large blowouts in league games.
Watchout, superintendents trying to save money and AD’s brainstorming for them usually leads to bad stuff; Cutting sports and pay for play. If you think this first step is radical wait till some other ideas they may come up with.
Question
What does Lax have to do with wrestling. Eric- any thing to add to the conversation?
So they say the internet is killing the newspaper. Now I now why. can we get some focused posts or are we not going to discuss the mid hudson tournament so we can worry about lax and football.
Eric-
I don’t know you, although I would like to introduce myself, but please take control of the blog and the paper for wrestling. there are very few places you will get a loyal fan base and wrestling tops the list.
Here is hoping for results in the AM
Eric, Why is Joe Lombardi writing in this blog? Are you still part of the wrestling beat? It is obvious that this blog has lost a lot of steam. It used to be a great source of SectionOne wrestling information. I am not giving up on it yet but it’s not looking good at all.
Putnam County –
I will answer that question. I posted the link to the story because as you can see from the comments, it is pertinent to all of Section 1 athletics, including wrestling. In fact, the link to the story was posted on all our varsity sports blogs. We certainly didn’t want to leave out wrestling.
And this is certainly the place to come to talk about wrestling. So Putnam County, how about it? What are your thoughts on the season so far? What wrestlers’ performances have surprised you? What tournaments are you looking forward to in the next few weeks? I’m sure Eric and all the folks will be interested to hear your insights.
Also, while I’m here, I would like to join the many of you who have been commending Eric for his fine efforts the last few weeks. We’re looking forward to his coverage of Monday’s Michael O’Connell tournament at Pearl River.
I remember back In the 60’s In the upper Putnam and westchester county league we had schools like mahopac, Carmel,JJ,JFK,Brewster, Hed Hud and Somers all within a
10 mile radius which made the costs of traveling less expensive. Now, these schools have some of the best programs In Section 1 and some of the best coaches and athlete’s In NYS.
I think it would be cool to see some of the rivalries renewed. Carmel and Brewster was pretty big back in the day.
I’m too young to remember Mahopac and Brewster, but I bet it would be big too.
I remember when JFK and Carmel or Brewster was big too. Although JFK used to be good too.
In the end I think it will be better and it will force the weaker schools to get better