One difference is that in the Western part of the state, everyone complains about how big NA is, but their graduating classes are "only" in the 600s whereas it looks like North Penn is over 1,000
Yeah, I thought my high school was big at 650ish back in the day, but North Penn is gigantic.
Just saw an interesting stat, on a high school football message board of all places.
The WPIAL has six girls' sports for the fall. In those six sports this year, NA finished 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 2nd in the WPIAL.
Ok so DiCola from Hatboro Horsham with the win! Didn’t see the race but looks like Griffith went out super fast but couldn’t quite hold off DiCola. Hot day in Hershey.
Do they still run WPIALs at Hartwood Acres? I ran at Hartwood back in the early 90s. It is located very near NA so they had a little bit of a home course advantage. Not that is rally mattered, anyway. They pretty much kicked @ss even back then. Coach was a guy named John Wilkie. I highly doubt he is still there, though.
I ran in the late 80s/early 90s Hartwood and they had an decent individual every few years, but were never a team threat to make it to states any year back then. And John Wilkie never coached at NA. He coached at North Hills.
Yeah, I thought my high school was big at 650ish back in the day, but North Penn is gigantic.
Just saw an interesting stat, on a high school football message board of all places.
The WPIAL has six girls' sports for the fall. In those six sports this year, NA finished 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 2nd in the WPIAL.
That's pretty wild..
You can credit all of this success to their AD Bob Bozzuto. He hired me for my first coaching job at a different district he was the AD in (Franklin Regional) and it was an interview unlike any I've been in. He really wanted to know what I knew about the sport and what I would bring to the district. He wanted to know what my involvement would be with the middle school program and how it would link to the high school program. He checked references and even called his younger brother about me whom I graduated with. He was a baseball guy and believe me...he cares about all sports, because if any sucked or are poorly coached...it's a reflection of his work. He is also not afraid to let coaches go. I've seen it happen and he will find someone better. As a high school coach, this is the kind of guy you want to work for.
Told you. That said, the races for the individual wins in AAA were exciting, but damn was it hot out there yesterday. It felt near 80 degrees during some of the races when the clouds broke.
Accurate in terms of what? Based on how he does his ratings, yes. DiCola set the Paul Short HS record earlier in the season, so it's not like he's not legit, and Griffith was doing similar things on the other side of the state.
If you’re in the western part of PA then you gravitate towards that ONE program. In contrast there’s tons of big school programs in the east to choose from so the blue chippers get spread out amongst 10-15 teams in District 1.
NA is public, right? Are you implying that they're recruiting, or that people are moving into the district so that their kids can run XC for them?
You don’t think parents move to districts that benefit their kids in sport? They certainly do it for academics. An avid runner parent in the Pittsburg area would be stupid to not live in the NA district. NA wasn’t made overnight it’s established dominance over decades with this mindset.
Oh and I’m not saying that NA doesn’t have excellent coaching and the athletes work extremely hard. They certainly do that. It’s just that they have these other factors going for them that are more difficult to acquire. Like being a large suburban school not surrounded by tons of other large suburban schools to compete for talent with.
2022 Pennsylvania State High School Cross Country ChampionshipBoys - AAAParkview Cross Country (XC) Course, Hershey, PA Nov. 5, 20220:00 Start0:28 1000m1:26 ...
If you’re in the western part of PA then you gravitate towards that ONE program. In contrast there’s tons of big school programs in the east to choose from so the blue chippers get spread out amongst 10-15 teams in District 1.
NA is public, right? Are you implying that they're recruiting, or that people are moving into the district so that their kids can run XC for them?
If you live in the Pittsburg area, are a good runner, and have children wouldn’t you look to buy a house in the NA district. This happens in all sports. The difference is that in the east suburbs there’s tons of schools with a high reputation like NA. So the talent gets divided.
