Number 1. Please realign the NTL football member schools to include only the nine teams in Bradford and Tioga (PA) Counties.

    

You wouldn’t think I’d have to specify “PA”, but we already include a team that’s not even in our District, how long before we welcome in an 8-man team from across the border?

We have nine teams HERE .. perfect for a 10-week season. Everyone plays each other, and everyone has two games to schedule whoever else they want. 

Want to get in that “warm up” game? Go play CMVT or Bucktail. Or both. Want to get your kids used to playing the “big boys”? Fine, go play Loyalsock or Montoursville on your non-league weeks. Have at it.

Heck, keep playing the teams we boot out! Let Muncy, South Williamsport and Montgomery schedule us around their games from the leagues they are already in!

And while you’re at it, no more of this large and small-school nonsense. Everyone plays everyone else. The best team is the NTL champ. Single A Canton already plays up and AAA CV plays down .. get rid of it. 

We just had a season where Cowanesque Valley didn’t play fellow-Tioga County teams Wellsboro or North Penn. But they had two games against both CMVT and Sayre on their original schedule. 

Straighten that mess up.

Number 2. This is a two-parter St. Nick .. pay attention: 

A) Please make the PIAA implement a shot clock for high school basketball. 

It’s so long overdue. The only people against this are schools that whine about the cost of installing the clocks (about $2K .. I guarantee there is no shortage of local businesses willing to foot this bill to have their name slapped somewhere on the wall showing it) and operating them (schools already pay a game manager, a scoreboard operator, a scorebook keeper and three refs .. make it one of their responsibilities, or come up with another $25 a game and pay someone to do it). 

And B) .. until it inevitably happens, make coaches stop abusing the fact that we don’t have one.

Now, don’t get me wrong .. I am the same ex-coach that sat at a game last week and audibly wondered aloud why a team that was up four points was jacking up threes with two minutes left in the game. That is a situation that you MUST take advantage of the lack of a shot clock. Our rule was “open layups only”. You're still running an offense, but ONLY risking turning the ball over on a wide-open lay-up. I'm sure there are teams whose rule is "dunks only" but, we weren't that team. Not by choice, but by capabilities! 

That is not the scenario that is ruining high school basketball. The one that is, is the coach that starts the stinking game out in a “slow down” offense, runs it all game and ends up losing 19-15 anyway. 

Fans .. and more importantly, your kids .. would much rather have a game where you PLAY BASKETBALL and lose 65-50 than one where two of your players stand at half court, play keep-away and you lose 19-15. 

“Well, it worked”, says the coach who held the high-powered opposing team to 19 points. No .. it almost worked. You still lost.

Number 3. Covid sucked .. and still does. BUT .. if there was anything good that came out of it, it was the 6:00 p.m. start times for varsity games with JV games after. Bring that back, please.

Number 4. Please give the NFL’s Washington Football Team an actual name. I’m tired of having to double-check every time I see “WFT” to make sure I didn’t see what I thought I just saw. 

Number 5. Another two-parter. Or kind of a “if you can’t do this .. do that”-type wish. I know you have no pull with the PIAA, don’t feel bad. Neither does the Governor, our State Representatives or the actual schools they represent. 

So, since there’s no way you can make them create a separate classification for private schools when it comes to post-season play .. which should have happened long ago, I guess I’m just going to ask that you help people accept the fact that it’s not going to happen, and get over it. 

Yep, private schools win a lot of our District and State championships. Nope, it’s not fair. But whining every time your school gets beat by one of the “University of Sacred Saint Sciences” does nothing to help. 

It is human nature to make excuses why your little school that graduates 60 mostly-locally-born-and-raised-kids can’t beat the “schools” that have literally endless boundaries to accept students from. But, whining about it and using it as an excuse to accept losing is not helping anyone. See, the problem with that is, there are public schools that are beating these athlete factories. Some times. 

Example #1 .. Southern Columbia. Example #2 .. Aliquippa. I could go on, but you get the point.

Then, of course, when a public school does find success over non-boundary schools, the rallying cry is “they recruit”. That is an issue for another, much longer column.

So let’s use example #3 .. Clarion High School volleyball. There were eight non-boundary schools in the PIAA Class A field of 15 this year. Clarion beat three of them on their way to winning the State Championship. They graduate about 60 kids a year. If they can do it, stop whining just because you can’t. 

Bishop Guilfoyle knocked Canton out of the State semi-finals in Class A football. I don’t know where all of their kids came from or how far of a reach they have on drawing players from, but I will confidently say that Bishop Guilfoyle did not have a vastly superior number of better football players on that field. They played better on that night, and they won, but not because they are able to draw kids from anywhere in the country that they want to. 

One benefit private schools have over public schools is that they don’t have to wait for a “good” group of athletes to come through at the same time year after year. Those athletes come to them, year after year. For public schools, it can happen every 5, 10, 20, even 30 years .. where a group comes through that is able to compete State-wide. A group that grew up together. 

I’m using Canton football as an example, but please don’t assume that they are the ones I hear whining about private schools .. I haven’t heard it once from anyone affiliated with that team. I just use them as an example because they had an amazing season and were knocked out of the playoffs by a non-boundary school.

But they also fit well with my final thought on the whole dilemma .. if they’d had an opportunity to accept five, seven, ten new athletes into their program before last season started .. great athletes, from all over the State. From multiple states. Enough that it would have virtually guaranteed them of a state championship .. would they have been happy about it?

Which of your kids .. the ones that grew up playing multiple sports together .. that are inseparable in and outside of school .. that played their way to the State semi-finals together .. which of those kids are you cutting off the team? 

Which of those juniors and sophomores, even seniors, are you benching in favor of a bunch of kids coming in from who-knows-where, for one season? 

Just enjoy the kids you have, that’s all I’m saying. Enjoy the journey that got them to that playoff game with the Academy of Basket Weaving. If they lose, you don’t have to make excuses for why. Just give them a hug, tell them that you loved getting there with the kids and families that you got there with, and tell them you’re proud of them. 

Whew .. that probably used up any more of the remaining wants and wishes I may have had! Let’s wrap this up with just one more request .. 

Number 6. Ok Santa .. last thing on my list, for this year. 

Please .. PLEASE .. get together with Paul and all of the good folks over at Home Comfort Restaurant in Westfield (right next to CV High School!!) and see about franchising that place all over the Northern Tier! 

This will NOT go along well with my upcoming New Years’ resolutions .. but it’d be amazing if you could just plop a Home Comfort Restaurant down right next to every other school in the area! 

The convenience, the food .. you just can’t beat it!

Thanks in advance Big Guy. I know there are some tough orders on there this year. So .. take your time .. and hurry up. No pressure.

Merry Christmas to all ..