MSB, explain the perennial lack of Alexandria football talent

I think ASH had a good baseball team this year.Other than that and Pebody hoops I really cant explain why they are bad at football.

Too many large high schools in town. The talent is spread too thin. Same with most sports, except Peabody bball

Good question, without an easy answer that I can think of.

I used to think Alexandria lagged way behind places like Lake Charles/BR/River Parishes because a more industrial environment found in those places tends to produce tougher kids. Alexandria has little if any heavy industry that I know of.

This argument loses a lot of steam when you bring Monroe into the picture, though. No industry up there either. And when you look at the population bases of just West Monroe by itself vs Alexandria, and then look at the number of HS ballas they've produced, all you can do is

For a while the area was putting out some really good baseball players. Then all of a sudden it stopped.

they're not 5th or 6th biggest, they're 8th biggest with like 3.5% of our population with no dominant program that carries their banner statewide (a la West Monroe or Acadiana or Barbe).

It could have been ASH had they remained as a big fish in 4A. i wouldn't say they have too many schools bc that also helps get kids out there to play that wouldn't have made a team twice their size.

Simply put, it is too many high schools, the talent and money is spread too thin to let the programs thrive. Most don't realize there are 11 public high schools and 3 private high schools, and a 4th on its way. Of those 11 public, 8 are 1A or higher (football eligible) and 7 field a football program, 2 of the 3 privates do.

For the Alex/Pineville metro area to be as small as it is, and the remainder of the parish to be relatively uninhabited, that is wayyyy too many schools. Smaller team sports thrive for this reason. Its why funding and improvements have lagged. ASH remains a swimming, baseball, golf, and track power. Peabody continues at Basketball and has won the last 2 4A titles in powerlifting. Tioga was the runner up for the last 2 powerlifting titles and won the one before that and has been near the top of 4A in baseball and basketball recently. Pineville has gotten better and better on the 5A football level, but are strongest in softball, and so on and so on. Each school has been strong at some small team sport, makes picking out what the problem with football is obvious.

More schools doesn't mean less talent. You probably hit the nail on the head with the youth sports point though.

Maybe I misunderstood the op

I thought he meant why are there few d1 major prospects and pro players from that area.

Number of schools would have zero bearing on those numbers.

If he was asking why they don't compete more within lhsaa, sure, too many schools is valid.

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The lack of big athletes coming out of Alec surprises me as well. I graduated from ASH and the year before I graduated Juan Pierre graduated and two years after I graduated Craig Nall graduated. So in a three to four year span we had two professional athletes come out of Alexandria. There were a few more guys that graduated within a few years of me that went on to play on professional practice squads somewhere but that's it.

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During that time they also had a major basketball prospect at Peabody (I forget his name, went to NC State or UNC Charlotte or something IIRC, but got Leukemia.) Then you had Chris Boniol kicking for the Cowboys at that time. But we pretty much owned all Alexandria area teams during my years in Leesville from the mid to late 90's. I always felt like we had way superior talent in all sports considering our pool was about 1/8th the size.

ETA: and not so much just winning on a team vs team level because I realize they have too many schools for the population size to be talent dense, but I mean Leesville has had more professional athletes in the last few decades than the Alec metro area.