[charlie22]

Vogel,

I am not going to debate the populaton of the Cincy Metro area which includes several counties on both sides of the river, but I am sure the actual metro area is closer to 2 million than 1 million. Never the less, the teams in 5A district 8 probably have around 20,000 people in their school districts which cover areas similar to the greater Cinci area. A lot of kids commute 25 to 30 miles each way to school which involves a bus ride of an hour or longer each way over narrow curvy back roads.

Highlands is succussful, but most people around the state know that Highlands is one of those schools that routinely go outside the bounds of their school district to pick up key players. Percentage wise the majority of your players may live within the school district, but every year there are a few "Key" players that are not home grown. Take away the "KeY" players and Highlands becomes a good team not a dominate team.

This year 21 of the 22 starting positions were filled by kids whom a from Ft. Thomas. The other one, a junior, is from Newport and is very good, but had Ollie Head (a Ft. Thomas kid) not broken his leg his frosh year and tried to play with a rod inserted in it last year, I believe strongly that it would have been 22 for 22 this year. I believe that Ollie will start next year next to the junior kid from outside Ft. Thomas and it won't surprise me one bit if Ollie doesn't match the other kid yard for yard.

Your point about Highlands getting out of district kids is a valid one to a point. Yes Highlands does occasionally get a good kid from out of district (2004 they got several and they were good). But Ft. Thomas also occassionally loses some good players. A whole lot of Ft. Thomas kids have gone to Newport Catholic (its 5 minutes away) and been some of their star players. I think one of of the best athletes in the junior class goes to CovCath. A very good frosh player goes to CovCath. At the end of the day, we lose some and we gain some. It pretty much balances out over a ten year period but in any one year we benefit and in other years we lose out. Plus as pointed out by Vogel, while there is a large population base and we don't have the transportation/road issues that the rural county schools have, that big population means there are a lot of high schools "competing" for those kids. And Highlands is not the only good football team up here for them to choose from. NewCath, CovCath, Dixie, Beechwood and Boone County to name 5. Its not like all the good athletes in N. Ky get funnelled to Highlands because we are the only good football program up here. Not even close. And a whole lot of the surrounding communities cannot stand Highlands (jealousy I guess ), which means a whole lot of kids grow up hating Highlands and definitely not wanting to go to Highlands. So its not near of the advantage that you think it is. Its really not. And lest people think we get kids from Ohio, think again. We don't. I can think of one in the last 10 years and he was not an impact player. If you think I'm full of hooey, just think about it. If you were a good, key, impact player from Ohio, would you play football in Ky or at the Ohio powerhouses? Answer: Ohio powerhouses.