Why do you say this? What would be the motivation to consolidate teams? The enrollment is pretty close or exceeds some of the 'burbs for most DMPS.
Des Moines High School football
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Why do you say this? What would be the motivation to consolidate teams? The enrollment is pretty close or exceeds some of the 'burbs for most DMPS.
Here’s an idea. It kind of takes a combination of multiple suggestions that have been made. North combines with Hoover for football. Lincoln combines with East. The new East team plays at Williams still. Roosevelt and the new Hoover team share this new stadium.
That way you still have multiple teams and limit the consolidation. You also hopefully up the participation levels. It also limits the concerns of to many teams on one field as it would be no different than Ankeny.
That way you still have multiple teams and limit the consolidation. You also hopefully up the participation levels. It also limits the concerns of to many teams on one field as it would be no different than Ankeny.
The push back is coming from Des Moines Lincoln from the most part. A lot of southsiders like their tradition. I get that. The southside business's will lose customers and so on also. Not just dealing with football. It's also a pride thing.
If there was a city conference then all the games where they play each other could be at this stadium and then the “out of conference” games could be played at the home sites.
I’m pretty convinced everything is going to change big time in a few years when there’s a Suburban League.
It has absolutely nothing to do with enrollment. The motivation, for the lack of a better term is to be "competitive". The better question...what is the motivation to even consider centralizing. If like has been written here, all concessions go to the schools and not Drake....hence not about the money....then what's the point? Williams and Hutchens have been here since they invented dirt. Hoover has for 23 years and I know for a fact North siders love what Grubb did for that school. So that leaves Roosevelt. Like I said.....probably a great idea if only one or two had their own. But when everyone......but one has their own......why?
So a five team conference? Might work. IMO I don't think that is what this is about.......I could be wrong. Problem is.......having a stadium where maybe 1 or two games get played per year? I guess there is always soccer where people come in droves of tens upon tens.
What they need to do with the High School sports in football is consider the amount of kids who go out for the team. Not the enrollment of the school. Lincoln, North and all of them have pretty high enrollment rates but have horrible turnout for the football team. With a central stadium it will even go lower. They should be playing 3a or even in Norths Case 2a football. When Valley has 100 kids out for the team and Lincoln has 30. It's an uneven playing field.
Maybe you just cut the combination from Lincoln and East then. In my experience with the Des Moines schools really the ones with troubles are North and Hoover. If you got them to combine then you’d have 4 schools. You could either move that team into this new stadium like I said or you could keep them at Hoover.
Personally I think that this makes the most sense as more of a soccer thing. You can use it for football too but I think the improvement will be with soccer. You’d have less wear on the existing fields which may improve them for football.
Are those teams any good? I'm guessing no.
I've got family in the coaching arena and the feeling is football is imploding anyway so perhaps this kind of stuff is just all a part of that.
It's definitely about money. A one-time cost for one facility vs. ongoing maintenance/upgrade costs at four facilities. Plus, fewer rentals of Drake Stadium. Concessions are chump change in comparison.
From the sounds of it. They are easily going to get the 5200 sigs on the petition. This is going to go to a vote by the people. Southside restaurant owners and alike are collecting sigs. So are the Hoover folks.
I agree and have said so for years, the current setup favors schools that have tradition and are getting kids out for the sport.
They need to use a 5 year average of kids actually out for the team to determine the BEDS numbers for football and not the number of kids in school grades 9-11.
Hell the last year that Harmony had football they had 16 kids out, we were forced to cancel the JV schedule, we got a call from Twin Cedars looking for a game, when I asked how many kids they had out for the team it was in the 50's.
Why is any team with that many kids out for football playing 8 man? Gives them a better chance to win, playing smaller schools with fewer kids out.
The suburban schools have the same advantage over the DM schools, I would guess schools like Waukee and Valley have between 150 and 200 kids 9-12 out for football, while schools like North and Roosevelt may have 30 to 40 kids 9-12.
inhave said that for years also. It’s a simple way to do it. School size has little bearing over the number of football players
The tradition of being lucky to have had one of the two "home" stadiums in the city for over half a century.
Because they already have 6 classes now, A, 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A and 8 man. They really need to do away with A and 1A and just group them all together, and then split 8 man into large school and small schools for the sport.
Doing so they would have to move the BEDS numbers up to allow smaller class A schools to drop down into 8 man, currently I think the number is 115 or smaller to play 8 man.
I looked up how expensive it is to maintain a high school football stadium. It isn't much, especially considering they are going to keep using them for other sports. I find it a little baffling to think about all that DMPS could spend 15 million on.
I Do not have anything to do with the DSM public athletics situation directly, but very much so indirectly. Wanted to point out that while each of these schools technically does have their own stadiums, Hoover, Lincoln and North are the only 4A schools in Central Iowa with natural grass, and we aren't talking Jack Trice Stadium type natural grass. By a couple weeks in these fields are dangerous to be playing on with several levels being played on each. Roosevelt obviously already paying a nice sum to rent Drake, and East actually has a pretty decent facility.
In addition to playing surface, The stadiums are dumps. Press boxes have no space and are run down. Bleachers are just that. Next to no locker or changing facilities and what does exist is disgusting. Scoreboards have the essentials but those are big revenue producers at the suburban schools with replay screens that show ads on them constantly.
Having been a part of a place without a "home" stadium now for 15 years, but from a small school where it was the center of the community- I will say it was no where close to the big deal I thought it would be. For the players and coaches that will use this, I have no doubts it will be a great addition for them.
In addition to playing surface, The stadiums are dumps. Press boxes have no space and are run down. Bleachers are just that. Next to no locker or changing facilities and what does exist is disgusting. Scoreboards have the essentials but those are big revenue producers at the suburban schools with replay screens that show ads on them constantly.
Having been a part of a place without a "home" stadium now for 15 years, but from a small school where it was the center of the community- I will say it was no where close to the big deal I thought it would be. For the players and coaches that will use this, I have no doubts it will be a great addition for them.
Hoover already made the move down to 3A for this fall. Not sure how much that is going to help them competitively but its a step in the right direction for them.
Didn't help Waterloo East at all but then again they got put into the best district in 3A (West Delaware, Independence, Decorah, Waverly). Just a killer.
For the new districts, Independence dropped to 2A and they got replaced with Western Dubuque, lol