All-State, All-District, etc.

All-League, All-County, All-Region, All-State, etc. recognition matters a great deal to the players and also to the coaches and parents.  

We have an interesting dynamic going in our particular area this past year or two.  With the proliferation of information exchange shifting to a wide spectrum social media and away from some of the traditional print and TV formats, the local newspapers and TV stations are covering less local sports.  Many of the local sports beat guys have been canned.  Our primary local newspaper has always been the de facto formal announcer of All-League and All-County athletes.  Players and parents would wait anxiously for the big edition to come out, with full front sports page coverage.  They stopped last year.  Instead, they posted partial lists on Facebook.  I kept getting calls.  Why are they not announcing?  When are they going to announce?  When does the "xxx" put out the All-County edition?  Very disappointing to many.  It matters.

I know a heck of a lot of parents, including myself, who still have the copies of the newspaper full page spreads from when their kids were front page news for good reasons.

It is ironic to me that, in today's information age, we actually get less of so much of the news we really want.

I think it matters to the kids and parents a lot.  I was excited every year to see when it posted.

All conference was determined by the coaches. Higher levels were determined by the newspapers. How do they do it? Stats and they call the high school and travel coaches.

Iowamom23 posted:

I work with an organization that has recognized All-State teams for a variety of sports in Iowa, including baseball. For a variety of reasons they are looking at dropping this, in part because they don't think people care about them, and the kids who are recognized get recognized in many other ways, so this one doesn't matter.

So I'm curious, in your states, who handles your all-state recognition? Does it matter to the kids who are recognized? I'm assuming it doesn't matter much for recruiting purposes, but maybe I'm wrong about that?

 

If it doesn't matter then why would PG adopt a similar scale?  All region...High honorable mention...1st team all American....etc.

It's a good tradition, heck it was even used by Al Bundy on Married with Children, he was an ALL state football guy ya know

But seriously, it is one of the few long standing traditions.  I know several kids who hope they are named to the all-state team, and if you are from a 3A school that may be the biggest accomplishment they get.

Our state high school athletics association handles all-state team selections, which are voted on by coaches. I believe all players that make 1st team all-league are automatically forwarded on for possible all-state selection. As a general rule, I think most parents, players, and coaches prefer to have all-state teams announced. They may not always agree but IMO...that comes with any all-star or rankings based system.

There are 3 All-State List constructions in Washington State. One is prepared by the Washington State HS Baseball Coaches Association which takes nominations from HS coaches and reviews stats, college commitments etc. I prefer this list because it's literally an All-State Team constructed by Conference Size (4A, 3A, etc). 9 players on the first team and 9 players on the second team. Period. The main downside to their list is that because it's exclusive and somewhat democratic, excellent underclass kids will miss the list if their school has two or three candidates in 12th grade.

A second all state list is prepared by a collaboration of news organizations (I think its the local USA Today and a local TV station) and is highly influenced by appearances in the State final four and statistics reported to Max Preps. They miss some of the State's best players every year whose programs don't make it to the Final Four or whose coaches eschew publishing team stats (Max Preps is utterly unreliable for baseball in Washington).  Their system also favors kids who had great moments in the playoffs despite maybe being mediocre overall.

The same news organizations collaborate on a pre-season "who to look for" article which inevitably features kids who played well in the State semi's and finals. Period. The main positive of this All State list is that it is literally an All State list in that players from all five levels of conferences show up on one list. But I personally found the holes in the list incredibly frustrating and lazy, so I prefer the Coaches Assoc list myself.

The 3rd list in Washington is a collaboration of two in-state newspapers. It's the most exclusive, and I think the most prestigious; the Star-Times "players of the year" by sport, by season. The list is usually 6 to 10 players, at most. Each season, the newspapers have big deal photo shoots, and for the most part they get their choices right. This one hurts me personally, because the reporters that prepared the list actually contacted me after my son's best year in HS only to tell me he missed the list by one vote because he was an 11th grader at the time. Ooooh, singed! Haha, I was so triggered I still get anxious thinking about it! Hahaha!

Teaching Elder posted:

Cabbagedad said, "It is ironic to me that, in today's information age, we actually get less of so much of the news we really want."

Boy this is so true.  Everything is click bait to get ad revenue along side of reruns of national stories copied from the AP Wire and a few dopey local interest stories.   Very, very, very little quality journalism at smaller levels.  Hometown's newspaper will run a few AP headlines, mostly bashing Trump, and then a whole bunch of "Best County for Singles", "Stuff Your Southern Mamma Says" type articles.   Even a lot of the larger outlets just rehash 24 hour news cycle topics du jour.  The Pajama media has become better and more hard hitting, ironically enough.

Social media/google/wikipedia have also lead to a very lazy and uniformed news consumer who does not dig into a topic in order to understand it well, looks for a quick summary explanation ("Google it") or gets their news and opinions via the latest social media pile-on.   I pray that I never come to the point where I need Stephen Colbert to educate me on political positions.   

[end of thread jack]/

[thread jack continued..]

Haha, Teach, I went into a Verizon store yesterday to deal with storage space issues with my droid phone.  The young lady working there was fairly helpful so I expanded my list of questions.  At some point, the pat answer became "just Google it" and she explained further - that's how they get most of their training.  

Teaching Elder posted:

Cabbagedad said, "It is ironic to me that, in today's information age, we actually get less of so much of the news we really want."

Boy this is so true.  Everything is click bait to get ad revenue along side of reruns of national stories copied from the AP Wire and a few dopey local interest stories.   Very, very, very little quality journalism at smaller levels.  Hometown's newspaper will run a few AP headlines, mostly bashing Trump, and then a whole bunch of "Best County for Singles", "Stuff Your Southern Mamma Says" type articles.   Even a lot of the larger outlets just rehash 24 hour news cycle topics du jour.  The Pajama media has become better and more hard hitting, ironically enough.

Social media/google/wikipedia have also lead to a very lazy and uniformed news consumer who does not dig into a topic in order to understand it well, looks for a quick summary explanation ("Google it") or gets their news and opinions via the latest social media pile-on.   I pray that I never come to the point where I need Stephen Colbert to educate me on political positions.   

[end of thread jack]/

I'm going back to bed.  I didn't know things were so bad.

"It's a good tradition, heck it was even used by Al Bundy on Married with Children, he was an ALL state football guy ya know "

Heck yeah, 4 touchdowns in one game. Al definitely deserved all accolades.

Iowamom23 posted:

I work with an organization that has recognized All-State teams for a variety of sports in Iowa, including baseball. For a variety of reasons they are looking at dropping this, in part because they don't think people care about them, and the kids who are recognized get recognized in many other ways, so this one doesn't matter.

So I'm curious, in your states, who handles your all-state recognition? Does it matter to the kids who are recognized? I'm assuming it doesn't matter much for recruiting purposes, but maybe I'm wrong about that?

 

I think, but an not sure but all conference, all region, all state (Virginia) selections are voted on by the respective coaches.    We also have an all area selection that is voted on by the local sports writers with input from the coaches.

Virginia is split in two: NoVa and everyone else. And you could argue that the Eastern Shore is a separate entity as well. Correspondingly, the major media centers are WaPo, Richmond Times, and the Virginia Pilot.

What carries weight in NoVa are the WaPo's All-Met teams, where the top HS athletes in the DMV are named in each sport, and then the overall top athlete for that season (Fall, Winter, Spring). Note that this covers public and private schools (and there are many, many private schools, some where tuition is greater than many colleges). The reporters for the WaPo do a very good job covering HS sports in the area, especially basketball and football. So being named to All-Met is the great recognition.

A public school All State falls behind All-Met as it covers only public. 

Means a lot to the kid, family, school..

its nice to be recognized for all the hard work and success you had during the season. 

But it does nothing for recruiting

cabbagedad posted:

Teaching Elder posted:

Cabbagedad said, "It is ironic to me that, in today's information age, we actually get less of so much of the news we really want."

Boy this is so true.  Everything is click bait to get ad revenue along side of reruns of national stories copied from the AP Wire and a few dopey local interest stories.   Very, very, very little quality journalism at smaller levels.  Hometown's newspaper will run a few AP headlines, mostly bashing Trump, and then a whole bunch of "Best County for Singles", "Stuff Your Southern Mamma Says" type articles.   Even a lot of the larger outlets just rehash 24 hour news cycle topics du jour.  The Pajama media has become better and more hard hitting, ironically enough.

Social media/google/wikipedia have also lead to a very lazy and uniformed news consumer who does not dig into a topic in order to understand it well, looks for a quick summary explanation ("Google it") or gets their news and opinions via the latest social media pile-on.   I pray that I never come to the point where I need Stephen Colbert to educate me on political positions.   

[end of thread jack]/

[thread jack continued..]

Haha, Teach, I went into a Verizon store yesterday to deal with storage space issues with my droid phone.  The young lady working there was fairly helpful so I expanded my list of questions.  At some point, the pat answer became "just Google it" and she explained further - that's how they get most of their training.  

Thanks to google and youtube, I had a thriving veterinarian practice for several years.