...It's not than any one of these factors can not be overcome individually and/or collectively given the right mix of school administrators, teachers, coaches, parents and students. But I think it's probably a little more difficult today. Many of the sports dynasties of years past (i.e. Lawrence football, McPherson bassketball, come to mind) involved teams hailing from communities with just one high school, which communities shared at least some of the afore-referenced attributes of a private or suburban high schools today (i.e. sense of community, shared values, etc...) Hutchinson serves as a good recent example. Would Hutchinson's athletic prowess been as spectacular during the past few years if their available talent pool had been shared with a newly constructed school?...
I agree with you that there can definitely be advantages to the one school in a community, but in Hutchison's case that was there also before their football success started. I attribute a major part of the Hutchison football turnaround to their head coach Randy Dreiling. Here is what I posted about that in another topic as a reply to another poster recently. Read the article that I have cited and I think you have to agree that they have a great coach who has to be given a lot of credit for that program's incredible success in recent years.
I still can't believe how easily you dismiss the value of a great coach in a team's success. The very example that you bring up of the Hutchinson football team only being on a roll for the last six years is for me one of my primary examples of the value of a great coach in a team's success. I am including a link to an article that will detail to you the state of the Hutchinson football program before Randy Dreiling arrived in 1998 and how he turned it around. I think you should be able to see after reading that article that Great Coaches do make a big difference in programs. If you still don't think so please explain to us why you think Hutchinson's football program fortunes turned around if it was not due to Randy Dreiling becoming their coach.
http://www.vype.com/centralkansas/general/3223
