Tony Travis, head Arkansas West All-Star coach, used three of his own athletes among the talented West roster to take a 16-13 victory over the East All-Stars in the annual Arkansas Activities Association All-Star football game on the University of Central Arkansas campus in Conway recently.
The Blackhawks’ talented kicker Nick Deleon proved to come up with four decisive points in the 3-point win over the East as he hit a long fi eld goal along with a point after touchdown. Two-way star Dayton Winn stayed on the defensive side of the ball during the contest with Blake Roughton logging some time in the trenches as an all star lineman.
With a now 1-0 record as an All-Star head coach, Travis used the All-Star week to again put Pea Ridge on the Arkansas football map with the ’Hawks’ strong presence in Conway.
Jacob Hall also saw action in the East-West basketball tilt but the West came up short in this venue.
All-Star Week is sponsored and conducted by the AAA featuring the best graduating seniors from across the state. Athletes of all classifications are eligible to be chosen for the annual meeting.
Busy sports year;
Changes coming
With the addition of dance and cheerleading competitions recently, Arkansas now sanctions 12 separate sports/activities that are participated in each year.
Pea Ridge currently competes in football, basketball, cross country, baseball, track, golf, volleyball, softball and cheerleading. The school doesn’t compete in swimming, tennis, soccer, bowling, wrestling or dance competition.
This year saw a multitude of schools claim state boys and girls titles.
Fayetteville won the most 7A titles with four, with Jonesboro capturing the same number of titles in 6A competition. In 5A, Little Rock Christian led the way with three championships with 4A Valley View having the most of any high school with five state championships.
Harding Academy, 3A, took three state crowns, with 2A school Conway St. Joseph having the most with three championships. No school in the 1A classification had more than one championship.
Private schools took 20 state titles in 2012-2013, down a little from some years but essentially unchanged. A rule passed to put an end to private school recruitment of established public school athletes has been effective in reining in the private school(s) who did so to gain advantages over public schools.
The biggest change next year will be the moving of state power Valley View from 4A to 5A for the next athletic cycle which begins in 2014. The Blazers were state champs this year in volleyball, boys tennis, boys soccer, girls golf and cheerleading. They were also highly ranked in just about everything else. In addition to all that, they have won vast accolades for their very high academic standards and are consistently the state leaders in a lot of areas. Located southwest of Jonesboro, the school will have all the students they can hold with the freedom of movement allowed by recent court and legislative action.
Prior to this year, students may only transfer into a white-dominated school (white as in Caucasian) if they were members of a minority group. Students and parents wishing to flee, for example, large schools with their inherent problems were prevented from doing so in they were not a minority. Of course,schools that were already fully enrolled and had no room for extra students don’t have to accept those students if they don’t live in the district.
In the first statistic from this year, quite a few students have transferred to Pea Ridge from our larger neighbors, and I predict a growing trend as long as the local school has room for the transfers. Schools like Valley View have been growing steadily with people seeking out homes in what can be described as a bedroom community of Jonesboro. Since physically moving is no longer required for a transfer, schools like Valley View and Pea Ridge may be on a fast track to rapidly increasing enrollment.
This new accommodation may have a negative effect on private schools in some areas. Up until now, about the only way a family had to escape a large school environment was to enroll in a private school, expensive though it may be to do so. With that no longer the only escape route left for a family, there might actually be a decline in private school enrollment, only time will tell.
There are very sound reasons to want your child in a small school environment than in a larger one.
Some recent statistics had these telling numbers: 80 percent of people incarcerated in prisons or jails attended what could be described as a large school. Inversely, most leaders of business and commerce attended small schools. Most officers in the armed forces attended small schools, and it is a well known fact that crime rates for small town areas is vastly smaller than what the rate is for urban areas.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 8 on 07/03/2013