BleacherCoaches.com

This has been one of the most tiring discussions during Clairton's run. But I got to talk about it. And I'm going to go at this from a different angle than past years this has come up.

Its time for other schools to work harder in the off season and step their games up. Teams like 08/09 Farrell, 08 Monaca, 09/10 Rochester, 09 Bishop McCort, 10 Riverside, and 11 SCA all played Clairton tough and a few of those teams had opportunities to win those games.

D3 has 3 very good teams and each would run through WPIAL competition in similar fashion that Clairton has.

Schools like Monessen, Chartiers Houston, Fort Cherry etc, all have had quality teams in the past, and will again.

I remember Rochester's run in the late 90's. They had quality competition in Farrell, Monaca, and SS Beaver in the Big 7. And then there was Fort Cherry, Clairton, Duquesne, Monessen, Greensburg Central Catholic and others in the playoffs. In 2000 Clairton beat Rochester Week 1, Char Houston beats Clairton in the 1st Round and Rochester beats Char Houston 7-3 in the 2nd Round. Then Rochester proceeds to win the State Championship.

So instead of fans complaining about Clairton. Have their kids in the weight rooms in Decemeber. Heck these schools should be in the weight room watching Clairton during these State Championship games instead of on the couch or whatever. These schools should be using Clairton's run as inspiration to get better.

Clairton has 105 Boys, and a roster of 40 kids. Its a 1A school, and a small one at that. Clairton is playing in its correct class. Other schools needs to step up or shut up.

No argument here...

Dare I say that the PIAA should have all private schools play in AAAA?

That would be idiotic. You want Geibel Catholic playing Gateway? Kids would get hurt. "A" schools are "A" schools however you look at it.

furthermore, Clairton is the best in the game.Why should they play up?

Class A private school teams like Geibel would drop football anyway if they had to play up.

It takes out the conventional catholic school. Yeah the Philly Catholic league would be fine. Pittsburgh Central,Cathedral Prep,McDevitt, and Allentown CC would be fine. GCC and Lancaster may have a fighting chance.

It would crush the average catholic based schools like McCort,Carroll,Canevin,Guilfoyle,North,Kennedy.


I think they should just merge and dismantle all "A" school districts thus eliminating small schools. Have AA as the smallest level. Allegheny HS of Maryland claims they are a small school in Maryland, yet they would be a top 5 school in terms of enrollment in District Six. Maryland doesn't have small high schools.

There is a new "North" catholic that will be opening in Cranberry Twp. within the next few years. I expect North Cath may close, and that new school may vey well end up being AAA or AAAA.

I was hearing the same thing regarding North Catholic possibly growing to 3A or 4A. NC is just moving from Pittsburgh to the Cranberry area.

Honestly, Catholic/Privates don't dominate the Class A scene. Its been dominated by Public schools like Farrell, Rochester, SCA, Steel High, and then Clairton. There have been a few Catholic schools in McCort and Serra that made it to the Championship Game. All of the so called Catholic/Recruiting problems have been in 3A & 4A. And quite honestly, I think this should be inspiration for the Public Schools in those Class's to take their games to an entirely different level. I think competition is a great thing. Greatness creates Greatness. So I think people needs to stop complaining about the Private Schools.

I disagree with merging all of the small schools. Out here in Washington County schools like Char Houston, Trinity, Peters Township, and Canon Mac are growing due the Natural Gas Industry. Merging some of these schools now could create an overcrowding issue within 5-10 years. An alternative could redrawing the school lines and sending kids from Cecil, and Muse to Fort Cherry. That would probably in itself make FC a 3A school or one very shortly. And FC would probably have to build a JR High to accommodate that change. Canon Mac would drop to 3A due to that shift but would quickly jump back to 4A due to the population boom in North Strabane. Merging Chartiers Houston w/ any school would be a mistake. The population boom in Chartiers Township alone will push CH to 2A within 2-3 cycles. There are 2 or 3 housing plans being built here right now as I type. I have 0 idea what the enrollment is like for Allison Park Elementary(CH) either. Lets look at South Fayette for a tic. Back when I was in HS they was a 1A school. Now they're 1 cycle away from being a 3A school. Merging schools in the Mon Valley or in Beaver County makes a lot more sense. But even I'm not sure w/ Beaver County. Who knows if they could see the same boom Wash County is having once that Plant gets built in Monaca.

Plus w/ small schools you're giving more kids the opportunity to play football at a competitive level. Say you merge Clairton and TJ, you're taking some kids off the field from 2 very fine programs.

1. Class A is the lowest level a school can go.
When a class A school gets really good in football, those teams have no problem whatsoever playing class AA football. Aliquippa, Jeannette, and Greensburg Central are proof of that.
They choose to do the really "classy" thing by saying "we're established now, it's time to get up and go somewhere else. We'll leave the struggling teams play each other."

2. You must be a coach. Working harder in the off season is not what comes to mind by most of the population of a school district. Many, many people think "how much is reasonably enough for the game of football?" We are talking about high school kids. They have hundreds of other things to experience in life before they make semi-final decisions, so letting football consume all of their vision and time 12 months a year is narrow minded insanity.

3. Does your school district have people running for school board saying they are tired of their school board putting too much emphasis on sports? That number of candidates is growing in every school district and indicates that there is a growing segment of the population thinking high school football is requiring too much. Gateway School District is the latest example of this. They are putting their foot down and questioning "how much is enough?"