This sucks

taynt7 · July 22, 2005

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...er.7ad03ee.html

untgirl04 · July 22, 2005

Man, that's really tough. I'd been hearing about the Wilmer-Hutchins problems on the radio for a while, but I hadn't really thought about the impact on their sports programs.

This really makes things difficult for the seniors this year. But allowing them to possibly choose between several different schools - isn't that a violation of UIL rules? A few years back, my hometown girls Basketball coach got in all kinds of trouble for getting a girl to transfer over for her senior year.

Still, UIL or somebody ought to do something for those players so that they still have a chance at college ball. For some, that may be the only shot they've got at attending college.

Coach · July 22, 2005

If Wilmer-Hutchins doesn't even have a high school, then all the kids will be able to play this year, I wouldn't worry about that.

I don't feel as bad for the Division I talent in that school (and they had plenty) as I do the guys and gals who were borderline D-IAA, DII, NAIA, or JUCO and athletics would have been the only way to get a college education. Now it is up in the air where they will play, and if they will even get playing time. Without exposure, it may hurt their chances of going to college on a scholarship, and many if not most of those kids can't afford it any other way.

They would have been a state title contender in football this year, it's a real shame.

My principal last year told me that even with behavior problems, the only things that make his job hard are the "big people". This is an extreme example of the adults ruining everything for the students. It's enough to make me sick.

NCMeanGreen · July 22, 2005

6-1, 380 pounds...man, that's big!!!

FirefightnRick · July 22, 2005

South Oak Cliff coach J.B. Wallace Jr. has met with several Wilmer-Hutchins players to let them know they would be welcome in his program. Many of them have accepted Mr. Wallace's invitation to work out on South Oak Cliff's campus.
"We'll take every last one of them," said Mr. Wallace, adding that an influx of talent from Wilmer-Hutchins could make South Oak Cliff a 4A state championship contender. "They've got some tremendous ballplayers."

I'd bet Coach Wallace plays a mean game of Chess. I hope they all end up at SOC and take them to state.

Rick

FirefightnRick · July 22, 2005

According to the Texas Bible(DCTF) this WH team has 6 returning offensive starters and 9 defensive returning starters from a team that went 10-2 last year and lost a close one in the 2nd round. The defense has a DB named Webb(1st team All State defense for Class 3A in '04) that had 11 INT's last year. All 15 returning starters are three year starters. That's a hell of a team and a hell of a situation to be told, "you have no school to play for now?".

Rick

PlummMeanGreen · July 22, 2005

I'd bet Coach Wallace plays a mean game of Chess. I hope they all end up at SOC and take them to state.
Rick

And SOC is doing this with the approval of the Texas University Interscholastic League, FFR?

GrayEagle · July 22, 2005

The demise of the Wilmer-Hutchins School District was so sudden that there wasn't time to set attendance zones, etc. A merger of Wilmer-Hutchins with Lancaster fell through (bad blood and Lancaster didn't have the money). Realize that every Wilmer-Hutchins school building was deemed unfit for occupancy. Dallas said that they would take them and the UIL gave the W-H students a choice of three high schools...Carter, Smith, and South Oak Cliff. Carter has their pipeline and probably not too many would make their 2-deep. Smith wasn't very good last year (or any other) but some of the lesser players could wind up there. South Oak Cliff was 9-3 last year and has playoff hopes this year so my feeling is that the best players end up there.

untgirl04 · July 22, 2005

The kids were treated poorly. I won't argue that. But I just feel that it's somewhat shady that they get their choice of schools. I realize it's not fair to the kids any way you look at it, but I can't help but feel that this kinda breaks the whole purpose of the UIL.

These players will have the opportunity to choose which school they go to: This means they can pick the school that promises them more playing time, a winning season, or better training for college. What I like so much about high school football in general is that players have to play where the district lines lie. I realize that some students/parents/schools bend the rules a bit, but overall, the challenge for the coaching staff is to take what they've got and build a great team.

Coming from a high school that hasn't made the playoffs since Johnny Perkins in the 60s, it just doesn't seem fair.

Greeneagle87 · July 22, 2005

I would never go to a school that has more than 400 kids there. I like knowing everyone's name.

That does suck for them though.

CaribbeanGreen · July 23, 2005

played for Coach J.B. Wallace when he was an asst. (DE/LB) at Lake Highlands in the mid-90's before he got the SOC job... charismatic players' coach, a good guy...

FirefightnRick · July 23, 2005

Coming from a high school that hasn't made the playoffs since Johnny Perkins in the 60s, it just doesn't seem fair.

untgirl04, have you been away from Granbury that long? My brother's team made the playoffs in '89, finalizing it with a first time win over Cleburne by blocking a last second field goal attempt. I guess it just seems like it was 35 years ago when you have had Stephenville, Cleburne and Brownwood all in your district for 40 some odd years?

By the way, that little league baseball tournament in Burleson I attended two nights ago was won by the team from Granbury tonight. They are a very well coached team, there are no weaknesses in their batting lineup. In that division(Bronco?) of the select league, they will represent this area in the World Series in Florida.

Rick

JayDub · July 24, 2005

Mike Robinson was my 8th grade football coach in Gainesville and I've never met a classier guy. I hate knowing that he's gonna miss his shot that he deserves to much because of a bunch of morons.

Then again, Coach Robinson should have been Athletic Director at Gainesville by the time I was in 9th grade...but the powers that be in Gainesville are...well....douchebags.

stebo · July 24, 2005

According to the Texas Bible(DCTF) this WH team has 6 returning offensive starters and 9 defensive returning starters from a team that went 10-2 last year and lost a close one in the 2nd round. The defense has a DB named Webb(1st team All State defense for Class 3A in '04) that had 11 INT's last year. All 15 returning starters are three year starters. That's a hell of a team and a hell of a situation to be told, "you have no school to play for now?".
Rick

Well, they should have talked their parents into voting for the tax raise that would have allowed their school to stay open. Everyone wants something for free - especially in Dallas school systems; nobody wants to pay more for it. The taxpayers of WH had every opportunity to raise their prpoerty taxes in a special election to save their kids' school - they voted it down by a HEALTHY margin.

GrayEagle · July 25, 2005

The old proposal did not pass the DISD School Board because of the possibility of liability for the WHISD commitments.

The new proposal sends students, depending on where they were living, to various Dallas schools using DISD attendance zones. The proposal, to be voted on tonight would send all Wilmer-Hutchins seniors to James Madison High School. Madison is a 3-A school that was in Wilmer-Hutchins district. They were picked to finish second by DCTF so this may send them deep into the playoffs. If you combine the two, there are 11 returning starters on offense, 18 on defense.

The non-seniors will be distributed to four Dallas high schools: Carter, South Oak Cliff, Roosevelt, and Smith. The non high school students are diffused even more widely.

UNTFan23 · July 25, 2005

Well, they should have talked their parents into voting for the tax raise that would have allowed their school to stay open. Everyone wants something for free - especially in Dallas school systems; nobody wants to pay more for it. The taxpayers of WH had every opportunity to raise their prpoerty taxes in a special election to save their kids' school - they voted it down by a HEALTHY margin.

I'm willing to bet it was voted down because the residents were fearful that the additional funds would not be used properly. I mean, it was the district administrators that got them into that pickle of a situation in the first place.

stebo · July 25, 2005

I'm willing to bet it was voted down because the residents were fearful that the additional funds would not be used properly. I mean, it was the district administrators that got them into that pickle of a situation in the first place.

The house had been cleaned, the state had taken over, and the parents simply did not want to pay any more money. Because of that; their kids no longer have a high school or a team. Everyone agrees that WH was a corrupt system but most of those scandals were very small in scale. For instance, the principal and the super were having the maintenance guys do work on their houses while still on the clock.. big freaking deal - fire the guilty ones and move on. That probably happens at 90% of the schools in the state or even country. Another instance was where the school was given all new computers by Dell because a high percentage of their teachers attended a certain workshop. When I taught 6th grade in Dallas I did the same thing and got a new computer from Dell. Dell did this as a publicity campaign to get schools to switch over from their MAC's in the late 90's, early aughts. Well, what you had were a bunch of extra computers sitting around in storage rooms. Some teachers never learned how to use them, some classrooms were never equipped or upgraded to handle the network for internet; and the ones that were upgraded were on such a slow server that the computer would sit in the corner of the room collecting dust because it was so darn slow. In the investigation they found that many of these computers that were not in classrooms (even some of the brand new, never been opened donated computers) had dissapeared... the maintenance guys were blamed for this as well but I would be willing to bet that most of those computers (about 30 came up missing - half old MAC's, half new PC's) ended up in a variety of places - teacher's homes, administrator's homes, and maintenance guys' homes. Some of those were sold, some have never been accounted for. Again - BFD... it happens at every school in the country. As I am sure that any teacher that posts on here can attest to, this kind of stuff is never talkd about but always seems to happen... and it happens at every school, not just Wilmer Hutchins.

The big problem with WH was that they chose a terrible contractor to renovate the condemned areas of the school. They did not do their research and in turn they got ripped off (and the job never got done properly)... when the inspectors came back to pull the red flags off of the buildings; they were still not up to code - all the money was gone, and they were condemned. At this point the state came in to rescue the school with a loan for about half the money to get the buildings back up to code. The school had to come up with the rest. Most of the teachers worked without pay for about half of last year; their checks weren't worth the paper that they were printed on... but they were on track to getting their school back... they just needed a little bit of money and a new school board to turn things around. The State attempted to take over and the board sued the State saying that it was none of their business. The State said that since they had to bail them out of a jam; they had a right to intervene... if WH had just let the State come in and work within their system - they would still have a school today... but they were too proud for that to happen. So the State let them fend for themselves after a judge sided with the school board members and this is the result. The final plea was to voters - begging their district citizens for some money to get them back on track for this year (it would be a 5 year tax hike - only temporary)... they voted it down and that is all she wrote. WH citizens have nobody to blame but themselves.

untgirl04 · July 25, 2005

untgirl04, have you been away from Granbury that long? My brother's team made the playoffs in '89, finalizing it with a first time win over Cleburne by blocking a last second field goal attempt. I guess it just seems like it was 35 years ago when you have had Stephenville, Cleburne and Brownwood all in your district for 40 some odd years?
By the way, that little league baseball tournament in Burleson I attended two nights ago was won by the team from Granbury tonight. They are a very well coached team, there are no weaknesses in their batting lineup. In that division(Bronco?) of the select league, they will represent this area in the World Series in Florida.
Rick

Didn't realize we went to the playoffs in '89. When I was there in '97, we had a winning record, and everyone said it was the best we'd had since Johnny Perkins. I just remember well the 35-0 loss to Graham (3-A) for Homecoming. <_<

My sister is a senior this year, (played soccer) and they were very glad to move to 5-A. Granbury will fare much better in 5-A than with having to play Stephenville, Brownwood, and Cleburne every year.

Great to hear baseball is still doing well. I was a little worried with the loss of our TCL team (now the Denton Outlaws), but baseball has always been pretty good in Granbury. So has the softball. If you have a chance to check out the girls fast pitch, I highly recommend it. Although the high school team has suffered from inept coaching for several years, there's a lot of talent down there.

FirefightnRick · July 25, 2005

The final plea was to voters - begging their district citizens for some money to get them back on track for this year (it would be a 5 year tax hike - only temporary)... they voted it down and that is all she wrote. WH citizens have nobody to blame but themselves.

The kids can't vote or they would have done the right thing. Worst part is, hey suffer the most even though it's not their fault. Therefore as the original title to this thread still stands: This Sux, especially for the football team.

Rick