A couple of days ago Bulletin editor Kyle Wright gave his own take on the story and column I wrote about small rural schools wanting a level playing field.

One of the things Kyle wrote in his response was, “Life is not always fair.” And that athletics was a perfect place to learn that reality of life.

I agree with Kyle, life isn’t always fair. The fact that I’ve been a New Orleans Saints fan since 1967 proves that.

I even agree in part with Kyle’s reasoning based on his own high school experiences in Indiana. And it’s hard to imagine that a state championship could have made my high school athletic career much more enjoyable.

That’s where I part ways with Kyle’s thinking. If the Florida High School Athletic Association had never set up a class system that would be one thing, but the FHSAA, has, depending on the sport, had some sort of classification system since 1938.

The FHSAA first started recognizing champions in baseball and boys basketball in 1922. In 1938 basketball split into two classifications. Baseball split into to classifications in 1949.

The first state champion in football was crowned in 1963. A year later the state split schools into two classifications. In about a decade there were four classifications for football. We now have eight classes in football and six in the other major sports.

What’s the point behind this history lesson? It’s simply showing that the FHSAA has long had a history of trying to level the playing field according to the size of member schools. By allowing metro private schools, that often recruit players, to compete in the smaller 1A and 2A classifications the FHSAA negates the sense of balance it is seemingly trying to establish.

Kyle talks about the realities of life for the small school students here in the panhandle, but what about the realities of life for a kid attending the Rock in Gainesville, or Eagle’s View in Jacksonville?

It seems to me the message being sent these students is, with enough money, you can buy just about anything. If daddy has enough money you can go pick the school with the best program in your sport and have that chance at a state title.

It would be nice if they were taught the lesson that a state championship is something you work for, not given the impression that some private school Ted Turner is assembling the best talent available to make a run at a championship.

I will not deny Kyle’s assertion that we have created a generation that the proper response to adversity is to fight not to get better, but to get the rules changed. But at least you are teaching the kids to fight for something in that scenario.

We also have created a generation with a sense of self-entitlement that comes when parents have enough money to send their children to the top training facilities and the schools with the best athletic programs. Many of these kids act as if the world owes them something, and that includes a state championship. And, if they don’t get what they want, or they get in trouble, their parents will fix things with the family wealth.

I believe whether or not there are ever any changes to the current classification system, the kids at Baker, Laurel Hill, Paxton and Jay will work just as hard to get better and they will be the richer for it.

And I still think they deserve a state title that money can’t buy.

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