Should Morristown be playing Delbarton?

Dallas McCall runs for daylight--but there wasn't any against Delbarton. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Dallas McCall runs for daylight--but there wasn't any against Delbarton. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
3

Editor’s note: Morristown High School athletes never make excuses. The football team played hard last week, as always, and fell short against Delbarton. But was it a level playing field?  Here is an argument against scheduling games between public and prep schools. It was submitted last year to New Jersey’s governing bodies of scholastic sports, and represents the author’s opinion, and not necessarily that of the Morristown High School Football Boosters or this publication.  What’s your opinion?

By Tim Heaton

The imbalance between New Jersey private and public high school athletic teams should be obvious enough without the need to prove it year after year with our kids. I am calling for separate athletic schedules for private and public high schools.

Here are some quotes from prep and private athletic directors:

  • Nutley HS Athletic Director: “The system of competition that exists in the state of New Jersey is severely unleveled. We’ve gone 0-40 in Basketball against privates in the last 10 years. Wouldn’t that tell you that something is absolutely and positively wrong with the system?”
  • Don Bosco’s Athletic Director: “Obviously, we have the advantage, we (privates) can pull kids from a number of towns, and they (publics) are limited by their borders,”

As everyone is aware, private schools compete with publics in athletics despite the fact that private schools recruit athletes from anywhere the students are willing to commute from. The cost of private school tuition is never an issue for a top prospect. Many private schools award scholarships and all provide financial aid.

Here are just a few samples of the disparities in athletic contests:

  • Seton Hall Prep’s baseball team in 2013 was 24 and 3 against publics with an average winning margin of 5 runs. Nine of those games ended on the 10 run “mercy” rule. Against other private schools SHP was 8 and 3.
  • In the last 10 years, Delbarton football has a record of 65 to 8 against public schools and an average winning margin of 24.5 points – over three touchdowns. However, against other privates Delbarton is only 22 and 20 with a margin of just 9 points.
  • In Soccer, Seton Hall Prep is 10-0 verses publics this year (2013 record). Only one public school scored a goal. The average winning margin was 3.2 goals. One team suffered a loss of 8-0. Against other privates, SHP was 4-1-1. With a winning margin of 1.5 goals.

 

Dallas McCall runs for daylight--but there wasn't any against Delbarton. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Dallas McCall runs for daylight–but there wasn’t any against Delbarton. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

Some private schools aggressively recruit student athletes; while others have enough momentum they don’t need to recruit aggressively.

However, all private schools share a common trait: They all have waiting lists. Public schools don’t. According to various sources, the number of applications for private schools in Morris County is four to five times the enrollment.

So, the greatest factor in the competitive imbalance is not because the privates recruit from everywhere, cherry-pick students, or give financial aid; it’s due to the fact that privates only accept 20- 25 percent of applicants.

Public schools have an acceptance rate of 100 percent. If private schools took all of their applicants they would be much larger – four to five times larger.

The Adjusted Private Enrollment calculation.

Let’s calculate just how large some of the private schools would be. Delbarton, just as an example, has 540 boys. If they were co-ed, the enrollment would double. So that adjusted for co-eds, Delbarton is at 1080 students.

What if Delbarton were co-ed and took all applicants as the public schools do? The enrollment would go up by the number of applicants: i.e. four to five times. This is the Adjusted Private Enrollment calculation. Here are the adjusted enrollments for several athletically dominant private schools using the lower factor of 4 to be conservative:

  • Delbarton – 4320 students.
  • Seton Hall Prep – 7520 students.
  • St Peters Prep – 7600 students.
  • Don Bosco – 7200 students.

Clifton is the largest public high school in New Jersey with 3,400 students. Morristown, were my sons attend, has 1,600 students. Does it make sense for any public school to play any of these private schools? No — of course not.

Finally, the lop-sided athletic record between private and public schools makes sense. It’s not the just the privates’ recruiting, scholarships, cherry-picking, better facilities or wealth that makes them athletically dominant. The real reason for the athletic dominance of private schools over the publics is easier to quantify. The privates are much larger than their public counterparts on an adjusted basis.

The solution?

Separate private and public schedules for all sports. The win/ loss records should speak for themselves. It’s clear that it’s harmful to public school athletes to be “mercy-ruled” time and again. This disparity has to stop. Public schools cannot be athletic fodder for private schools. It’s even dangerous in some sports like football.

Finally, here’s a telling comment from Don Bosco’s AD, “without public school competition where am I going to find 25 wrestling matches?”

The parents of the public school athlete say, “That is not our son’s problem.“

Sources:

https://www.athleticbusiness.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=3938&zoneid=9
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/23prepsnj.html?_r=1&

Tim Heaton is the president of the Morristown High School Football Boosters. But the opinions presented here are his personal views, and do not necessarily reflect those of the organization.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Your title is compelling, but I have a feeling that there is a lot more to the topic than W-L records.

    It’s been a lot longer than 10 years since I graduated from MHS but I remember that we had a healthy rivalry with Delbarton, especially in hockey and football.

    What have the past 20+ years of performance data looked like? The quote from Nutley is not very helpful–look at their basketball record over the past few years, against anyone.

    Adjusted Private Enrollment metric makes no sense as a linear function, and in general.

    A more ‘balanced’ system might involve rating kids and coaches on their skills and grouping them accordingly, outside of an academic context. Teams become regional, with either a lottery or draft system in place.

    I’m sure there were many times over the decades of Major League Baseball during which the Yankees dominated, that it seemed unfair to take the field against them. But don’t you think those rivals raised their game? Does MHS still get fired up to play Delbarton?

  2. I must agree. I have witnessed more and more Morristown athletes plat and help win games for the private schools they attend, because the private schools are paying for their services with scholarships.

    Why should our Public Schools help the private schools make a name for themselves at the Public Schools expense.

LEAVE A REPLY