Thanks. Not sour grapes, just the facts.
Good morning!
I was thinking about the situation and can explain it like this: both schools are classified as 3A due to the size of their enrollments, which are about 750 kids each.
Lincoln’s lone high school district has an overall population of 13,288 people.
Nazareth (LaGrange Park, IL - pop. 13,475) has a parochial school district that encompasses 120 communities (Chicago’s metropolitan area consists of 207 communities - pop. 9,618,502) that only for the theoretical purpose of my illustration, are assigned similar populations as the town of Lincoln, of approximately 13,000.
NOTE: This is in fact, an absolutely grossly inaccurate undercount. Now for MY mathematical example: 120 x 13,000 = 1,560,000. Seeing that 207 communities total almost 10,000,000, 120 communities would total somewhere around 5,000,000.
So one public school has a pool of 13,288 residents to select from, to build a basketball team, and a Chicago area private school has on the low end, a pool of 1,560,000 residents (in theory) to select from, to build a basketball team, to... on the high end, a pool of almost 5,000,000 residents to select from, to build a basketball team.
Until yesterday, I hadn’t been aware of the disparity in school district policies between public and private “parochial” schools in my home state of Illinois.
The school classification rankings are based on the size of a school’s student enrollment count as most everyone understands.
1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, and 6A. 1A being the smallest school, and 6A being the largest school, separating them in size in order to bring them into some kind of parity.
However, one glaring problem is the fact that public schools are held to a standard that is defined by a localized geo-boundary establishing their district borders, and private “parochial” schools have a dissimilar regionalized geo-boundary, establishing their district borders that are magnitudes greater in parameter.
The sense of disparity borders on the absurd. (I know, I know- No Whining!)
In all fairness, and in considering parity - Nazareth, would fall into a classification ranking beyond the largest 6A schools in Illinois if one even existed. EX: 7A, 8A, 9A, etc.
The radio announcer mentioned that Nazareth had been to the state tournament, four out of the last five years. I think I am starting to see why this is possible.
So it turns out that Lincoln, was an underdog and that is quite an understatement, in and of itself, and to reference the Good Book- it could be said that the matchup was a David vs Goliath battle.
Kudos to Nazareth Academy, for a great game and the state tournament championship victory, and kudos to the Lincoln Railers for a great season and hard-fought and well-earned second-place finish at the state tournament championship game.
Looking to next year... revenge is a dish best-served cold. LOL!