All-Area headache No. 9,283: wimping out on picks

We have a lot more extensive All-Area teams than most of you seem to, but we cover a huge amount of high schools, the vast majority of the very, very small variety. Many are very good - state ranked at some point and/or deep playoff runs.

So we split it up into class. The smallest class (which is of the six-man/eight-man variety) gets 16 total players, the rest get 26 plus a (single) MVP. 11 offense, 11 defense, 1 punter, 1 kicker, 2 "utility backs" for the guys who go both ways. Then we pick the best of the four classes to make our big, final team.

It is a bit much? Probably. But our bread and butter is the gazillion area high schools, and when I was doing my group, I didn't feel like I was reaching for any players.

Now for other sports? We totally go overboard with superlatives, 12 first team and 12 second team for volleyball alone. It's annoying, but if it's what the SE and ME want, it's what they'll get.

 

Who cares if there's more all-area players than there are players on that sport's team, or that some of these kids couldn't even make all-conference? More names! More names!! [/managing editor]

 

I hate all-league teams. There's one league in our area that has a Unanimous First Team and a First Team. ???

All-area teams should be simple, and at our paper, I feel we do that. For football, the top 11 players. Basketball, top five. Soccer, 11 (I actually do a formation of 4-3-3 plus a GK), baseball and softball eight position players, a DH, a utility player and three pitchers.

I've seen some papers take like 15 basketball players for first-team all area.

 

I remember at one stop we picked an off. lineman for our all-area team off a county school that won a small-class state championship. Kid made all-district as an underclassman, but his coach didn't nominate him for our all-area team. Our preps guy lobbied for him anyway because every time he saw him, he was dominant. After we announced our team, we asked the coach why he didn't nominate the kid. Coach said he didn't want the kid to be complacent for his senior year.

 

Our league -- all of eight teams, mind you -- hands out first team, second team, third team and honorable mention. Ridiculous.

 

That's why I don't like to call coaches' input "nominations." It implies they have some kind of veto power over the process.

I ask coaches for all-area "suggestions," and that's it.

 

So my brother-in-law, the football coach, was asking about all-area teams over Christmas.
He had a kid on his team rush for over 1,600 yards, 20 or so touchdowns and is getting recruited by D-II schools in a medium sized class. But the kid didn't even make the honorable mention list for the local daily, no player on a conference championship winning team made the HM list, let alone the first team.
He's also sure that the nomination form was sent back in.
Now he's left wondering why and, as he put it, "they always want stuff and now all I want is my players to get a little recognition and they won't even go to the trouble of typing in a name or two."
The state paper also did an all-state team and of the 26 on the list, 22 played in the state's largest classifications, four did not.
The article even mentions how it isn't worth pointing out small school players who did well since those numbers were generated against inferior competition.
Even though many of those small school players have college scholarship offers from D-I and D-II schools, while players, who did make the All-State team will not be playing college football.
Since my B-in-L asked me why, and since I really didn't have a good answer, I figured I'd ask here.
Should players from small schools be ignored when it comes time for post-season honors? And, if so, why?

 

No, they shouldn't. And shame on the papers' that shit on them that way.
Does it mean a player ISN'T talented because they play for a smaller school? While playing against larger schools helps, there are plenty of shitty teams with large enrollments that can help a player stat pad....

 

no, small school kids should not be penalized. we do a small classification team and a big school classificiation team for all the big team sports. it's much more fair and gets more kids' names in the paper on the whole.

as for the timed sports, yeah it's easy to pick that way, but you also have to figure in results as well. what if fastest girl is in high classification and does OK at state, while another girl is a tad slower but wins state in a smaller classification. how do you not pick the state champ? it's not so cut and dry.

 

I was taught at my first job out of school that you should never have a tie in your opinion. Have some balls and make a call.

The guy who told me this was canned a couple years later for rank incompetence but I kept that lesson as part of my philosophy.

 

You have a 1A running back who rushes for 1,500 yards and 15 TDs on a reasonably good team.
Then in 5A, you have a back with the same numbers and, in this scenario, the papers would put that player on the all-area or all-state teams since he put those numbers up in the largest classification and, arguably, against the best competition.
The argument, in this example, is that the 1A player is considered better by college coaches since he will be playing D-I football, while the 5A player hasn't been offered a scholarship. So why isn't the 1A player getting the honors?
I understand that stats from different classes aren't apples to apples, but to my brother-in-law, the default setting for the papers seem to be that the big class schools get the first look and the smaller schools are an afterthought. And what he's mad about isn't so much that his kids didn't make the first team, that they didn't even get honorable mention.

 

We do all county and all-area. For football, we do 24 (11 a side, plus a punter/kicker). One spot per kid, and I have no problem with a funky defensive formation (this year was a 3-5-3, for example) to make sure the most deserving are honored. No co-POY or COY. First teams are true first teams... five for hoops, six for vb, etc. Creates some controversy, but it's always good natured.