Worst high school athletic program in the country?

Wichita West went 3-147 in conference play this year in all sports combined.

Football was winless, conference and overall. So was baseball, wrestling, boys golf, boys tennis, girls basketball, girls bowling, softball, volleyball and girls swimming.

http://www.kansas.com/sports/lutz/story/414554.html

I think West's best team was the girls soccer team that won something like five games, including a postseason first-round game.

Oz may be able to help here, but West used to have a very good athletic department. Like, six, seven years ago. Boys basketball was a state power. So was football and wrestling. Then ... poof.

 

Geez. You almost have to TRY to be that bad.

And for it to be in both boys and girls sports?

Pretty amazing.

 

That's about right. I remember them winning the Class 5A state wrestling tournament in 2001, and even more recently, Tristen DeShazer (four-time state champ who graduated in 2006) was one of the more dominant and classy wrestling champs.

I remember covering a regional wrestling meet at West, where a former West state champion lost points during the match for an illegal move/headbutt. Kid lost his focus, lost the championship match and went to state as a No. 2 seed.

That would have been fine, except he went into the most remarkable tantrum I've seen from a high school student. He argued with officials, threw his headgear at the scorer's table, pulled the straps down on his singlet, flung a chair across the gym Bobby Knight-style, needed to be restraint by coaches and was escorted out while flipping a double bird, shouting "Fuck you!" or "Fuck that!" or "Fuck this!" the whole way to the door. After that, he received a police escort off campus. He was DQ'd from the meet (sportsmanship ... imagine that). When they broke that news over the PA, most everyone gave a standing ovation. It was the loudest applause I heard all day.

Whenever I read a story about West losing or a column like Lutz's that documents just how sad the sports teams there have become, I think about that West wrestler's tirade. It's too bad they don't have more DeShazers. It's a shame to see what's going on there.

 

There's got to be some juicy backstory that helps explain it. A once quality program suddenly becoming THAT horrendous in EVERY single sport, both boys and girls, doesn't just happen by chance. Or at least the odds of it purely being chance are astronomically unlikely. I imagine it wouldn't take much digging to find an explanation or two.

 

I wish I could give you something juicy. But I can yell you that Lutz absolutely nailed that column. If anyone moves to Wichita, I highly doubt anyone would want to send their kid to Wichita West, when Maize (a northwest suburb that's probably going to open a second high school before too long) isn't that far away. Especially given the wide gap between the two school districts when it comes to education.

 

Cross Keys High in DeKalb County, Ga., is pretty wretched. I think someone here posted the AJC story about their girls basketball team, which was losing games by scores like 76-0 and 84-1. Their boys team somehow won a state title about five or six years ago, but I have no idea if they're still any good. Their football team is 11-109 since 1996.

It's a very, very internationally diverse school, with a wildly transient student body, which explains most of its struggles.

 

Oz, did they redraw attendance lines for West recently?

I'm thinking another high school opened up and took away a neighborhood or two where some of the better players were coming from?

 

In Western Pa, Beaver Falls was the same way for a decade or so, but those players who were winding up in jail or in a gang or both were somehow getting back onto the field. It was said for a decade or so that the Tigers' potential first and second strings were not even enrolled in school.

I guess having a coach in the school or someone who convinces the kids to keep their noses clean enough so they play four years in high school makes all the difference.

Maybe if the gang community in an area has a "hands-off" policy to young star athletes, it might help keep them on the field as well.

Moddy, why isn't Evans looking at the D-League? Is he not ready for that?

 

3 years ago school in our area won 1 football game, 2 girls basketball games, 5 boys basketball games, 4 baseball games and 2 softball games.

The football team's win was in conference against an 0-10 team.
The girls team won their first game of the year, didnt win for 90 days then defeated the three seed in the conference tourney to unmercifully extend the season three more games.
The boys team beat two conference teams and 3 non-conference foes.
The baseball and softball teams did not win a conference game.

Golf and tennis were decent that year though. No one gave a shit however.

 

Nope, nothing like that. But Maize -- which is essentially northwest Wichita, even if it's a suburb -- is sprawling like crazy right now. That's where people who are moving to Wichita want to go, especially given the school district, how they wouldn't have to send their kids to Wichita schools.

And of course, Maize has much nicer facilities all the way around.

 

I blame soccer.