Private Schools

     I chose to do an opinion piece on private schools within Colorado high school sports. For years private school have reigned as king in Colorado, especially in our schools division, 3a. Schools like Faith Christian, Holy Family, Colorado Springs Christian, Denver Christian etc. These schools are primarily in our schools division, which brings some bad news for our athletes and something needs to be done about it.
     Year in and year out our school goes up against a daunting task of taking down these private schools. It is just not fair that our small school has to go against these private schools who clearly have big school talent. What needs to be done is these private schools need to have their own division. It should be 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a and the private school division. This is the only clear solution to the problem we have on our hands. For some reason it seems to go in one ear and out the other when it comes to the CHASSA officials. Who knows why, maybe they are alumni of the schools, or their kids go to the school. They just seem to want the private schools to dominate our little school division.
    Lets just take a look at our school for example. In 2004,2005, 2006 we could have had a back to back to back state championships, but guess who got in the way, the private school. Those three years were probably the best basketball teams Roaring Fork has ever had. In back to back years we lost in the state championship game to private schools. The year we finished third our only loss was to a private school. If it weren’t for those darned private schools Roaring Fork would have had a dynasty.
    Now the tiff that most public schools have with private school is the fact that they can offer scholarships, like a college. They see an athlete and are able to offer them scholarship money to come play at their school. This wouldn’t be a terrible thing if they were located in a remote area but most schools are located with in the sprawling metropolis of Denver. This means they have thousands of kids to choose from. When were are stuck with what we get. When we get stuck with what is in our town. The fact that the private schools recruit ruins once in a generation teams, like our basketball teams those three year.
    As you can see private schools surely ruin public schools chances at state titles. Every year private schools seem to dominate the 3a and it is wrong. It needs to be fixed. They need to have their own private school division, this would only be fair. The worst part about it is that all but about 3 private schools are in our division, so we seem to be the only conference that has to compete with the school. If they had their own division it would be a win win for everyone, a private school would still win a state championship every year and a public school would win a 3a state championship every year.