Basically private schools had an advantage over public schools because anyone could go to their schools out of their zone. For example: here in BR, Parkview Baptist can go and put a billboard in the ghetto in North BR with the billboard saying things like come to Parkview, great education, great athletics, great opportunities to be looked at by College coaches and things like that. It will attract talented athletes to leave the poor, ghetto public schools and go to a successful private school where they have a better chance at being able to succeed in life because of their athletic abilities. They have an opportunity to improve their lives by getting out of the ghetto.

We probably would have never heard of Derius Guice if he didn’t end up transferring to Catholic instead of staying at McKinley. For one, not many college scouts want to go to a game at McKinkey High School and two he would have probably ended up, like a bunch of students who go to McKinley their entire lives, living the street and thug life and would probably be in jail or possibly even dead.

Basically the private schools could advertise for people to come to their schools which is called “recruiting” and the public schools couldn’t do that. They just had to rely on the kids that lived in their zones as the future of that schools athletic programs. The public schools just felt like they were at a disadvantage and that it wasn’t fair that they had to compete with private schools once the postseason came around.

Now, there are public schools in Louisiana that recruit and recruit quite often and get away with it. Most of the top dog public football programs in this state recruit. I may be wrong but I think the majority of the people who voted for the split were smaller public schools who did things the right way and didn’t recruit. They just don’t have good athletes that live in their zones so it was hard for them to have successful athletic programs when they competed against teams who could basically go out and get whoever they wanted.

Now I’m a public school guy, grew up in one of the best public schools in Louisiana but I am very against the split. I think the split sucks and they need to bring things back to the way they use to be.