Brower Hour Online

End of the Year Quote Awards

2008-06-06T12:45:00.004-05:00

So, for all of you that are actually upset (or aware) that I NEVER update this blog, I have a little something new for you. Yesterday, Mary and Alannah, two of my Omega cohorts, dropped off a folder of all of this year's issues. I decided to created the first (and probably last) End of the Year Quote Awards to comemorate the best and worst of the lot. All these quotes appeared in print in an article with my byline. Here goes:

The "Leonardo DiCaprio Award" goes to...
Lauren Springstroh, for her quote in "DGN grad fights AIDS, poverty in Africa"

"They [the Ugandan military] had a habit of
stopping our vehicle and demanding obscure, non-existant papers. Really, they
just tried to intimidate us and get us to bribe them. We wouldn't have any of
that, so we were taken to a military barracks once, and a few times we kind of
drove off and the military chased us for awhile then got bored and left us
alone."

I'll tell you what...for my summer vacation next year, I'm not planning on getting chased by crazy militant Africans. Nor will I appear in print, talking nonchalantly about the experience.

The "Biggest Jerk-Off Award" goes to...
IHSA Assistant Executive Director Ron McGraw, for his quote in "Incompetence Has Struck Again"

"The IHSA board of directors has complete
control over changing any policy, including Policy 19."

This, of course, came right after (and right before) he continuously pointed out that he was stuck following a rigid policy to the best of his ability, and that he could do nothing about it so we should all stop bothering him. Hypocrite much? Keep in mind this was also right after he sent me an email in which he misspelled his own job title--TWICE!

The "I Still Don't Get It Award" goes to...
Ron McGraw, for his quote in "Incompetence Has Struck Again"

"In order to appreciate the assignment of
any one school you would need to see the entire map and understand that it is
all interrelated. In this system there are always schools on the edge of a
cluster that could have gone one direction or the other. Sometimes it is a
function of attempting to assign the same number of schools to each
sectional."

Ok, Ron, nice try. However, three points remain true:
1. Either way, Neuqua Valley was closer to THREE other sectionals then the one you sent them to
2. the map could, with a little effort on your part, be reworked
3. there is NO rule that states that every sectional must have the same number of teams
Please, Ron, could you try to spell "Assistant" for me?

The "Don Vito Corleone Award" goes to...
Athletic Director Denise Kavanaugh, for her quote in "School policy exacerbates [drinking] problem"

"Everything that goes on in this office
stays in this office. It doesn't go on your record. It doesn't go to colleges.
It's all very private between the family."

Sorry Denise, but being the AD and allowing yourself the pathetic, lazy luxury of parking your big, shiny SUV next to the building doesn't give you legitimate power to hush things like underage drinking up. Or does it? At least you and Coach Wander have worked it out so that the entire football team isn't in jail. Keep it on the DL, capiche?

The "Imagine What Else You Could Do With 200 Grand Award" goes to...
Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale, for their quote (from Fortune) in "Forget about grades"

"Smart, talented kids who attended less
selective schools did just as well as their counterparts at elite colleges.
There was no difference in average earnings."

That's a downer. Looks like their loans will be paid off a LOT earlier. But hey, at least everyone got to hear about how brilliant and speical you are at the honors convocation and senior awards. You're SO smart! I wish I was you! (Sarcasm).

The "Most Awkwardly Funny Response to Something I Wrote Award" goes to...
Principal Maria Ward, for saying:

"Are you Jacob Bauer? I'm Maria Ward."

Really?!?! Thanks! That's a relief, considering that by my last day of school I had NO idea what my own principal's name was. (Also sarcasm). Kind of like how she didn't realize my name was Brower, not Bauer.

That's it. There would be more, but I'm bored of typing them. Also, I usually avoid writing stories that involve interviews. Honorable mentions go to: Alex Lyons ("Incompetence Has Struck Again"), Clayton Gardner ("An honorable mention")...and then well, I could go on forever with the ridiculous and somewhat frightening view of our society and authority figures presented by Mrs. Kavanaugh. But I won't. Ciao.

Congratulations, You're Not A Moron

2008-04-18T10:52:00.004-05:00

I've been informed that I ought to blog a little more often, thought it becomes increasingly difficult as teachers at my high school feel pressured to give second-semester seniors every last bit of asinine busywork they have left over in their file cabinets, not to mention the whole process of applying for college and then for scholarships that will allow me to afford said college. Incidentally, I'm going to Ithaca College, in Ithaca, New York, so it'll be a nice change of scenery for a lifelong (and bored) midwesterner.

I don't have anything to write for you at the moment--I'm too busy attempting to put together this month's Omega (the student newspaper) to write anything apart from stories about Advanced Placement testing and how stupid grade grubbing suck-ups are. However, I did write a short satire that got rejected for this month's paper, since it was silly, condescending, and apparently not all that funny. So...you all get to read it. Here you go...

Congratulations, You're Not a Moron
by Jacob Brower

Congratulations. You made it all the way from the headline to the actual story, so give yourself a pat on the back. This makes you special.

Seriously, take a glance to your left and right—there should be other students with newspapers open in front of them. Note their glazed expressions as they scan each page for pictures and completely ignore anything longer than a paragraph.

These people are sad human beings, prime examples of the dregs of high school society who have become too lazy and indifferent to read. Not you. You are special. You saw the catchy headline above the face of a handsome welcoming young man and thought, “Hey, I bet that guy right there with whom I attend school has something important to say.” You were smart, and you were right.

In any other issue over the past two years, my column might have pointed out the evils of censorship, the presence of reverse sexism in school, what the administration screws up, or even the vast amount of butt-prose gracing the pants of females everywhere. Then, when the glassy-eyed, non-reading types complained about Spirit Week and other subjects they didn’t understand, you may have responded, “Hey, moron, the newspaper informed me about that particular subject along with many other informative and exciting student-related tidbits, because I can actually read.” I appreciate readers who have made it this far, who know exactly what I’m talking about—which is why I didn’t feel a need to write a profound editorial this month. This piece is all about you.

I salute you, the curious, intelligent, well-read students of DGN. When your parents complain about teenagers being stupid you exclaim, “Not I! By reading Omega I have become enlightened!” When fellow students clearly aren’t reading the paper, you scoff and tell them, “Take heed, these are the words of journalistic prophets! Read them and find the true meaning of life.” You point at the many words on the page and whisper like fields of corn, “If you read them, truth will come.”

You have been excellent readers over the years, and I love you. It’s a platonic, non-disturbing affection, but it’s love all the same.

Bigots Don't Deserve to Vote

2008-03-05T21:10:00.004-06:00

I'm so sick of hearing about whether Barack Obama is a Muslim or not. He says he's not...that's fine, who cares? I've read people saying that since his father is Muslim, he--by definition--is also a Muslim, and then they go on to bash him and call him a threat to national security and a terrorist. He's not a Muslim, alright? If he says it, I'll believe it, there is something in this country we like to call freedom of religion.

Also, I'd prefer if all the bigoted dolts who apparently frequent political arguments would stop referring to Muslims as "terrorists"--being Muslim no more makes you a terrorist than being a Christian makes you a good person. There are MANY exceptions to both rules. In fact, there is plenty of Christian terrorism--white Christian supremacists who commit hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, etc.--and then go spread the word to the rest of their ilk on the internet. Those people need to remember something called the Ku Klux Klan before they go off referring to themselves as good Christians.

I'm an Atheist, and I have no shame in admitting that. Two of my best friends are half Jewish/half Muslim and half Jewish/half Buddhist, they are dating a Roman Catholic and an Episcopalian. One of our other friends is an Evangelist, another is a Lutheran. If those are the kind of things that matter to YOU in judgment of people's character or intentions, than you ought to be dragged out in the street and shot, because you do not deserve the right to vote.

2008-02-14T17:03:00.002-06:00

Thirteen yellow droplets
of melted llama stones
Drip horizontally upward
and seep into my bones

Sixteen juniper dogs
belong to Mr. Indiana Jones
Walking in the green park
they talk on wooden phones

Forty-two jumpin' jehosophats
poke Jesus in the eye
And I run through solid water
For hours 'til I die.

Campbell and Vonnegut on the Fallacies of Faith

2008-02-01T07:58:00.000-06:00

Like usual, I find confirmation that I do my best learning and thinking outside of the pathetic confines of conventional education. I've been working on a paper for AP English, a very cut-and-dry argumentative bit limited to themes related to the texts we've read and requiring a certain number of a certain kind of quote that can only come from a certain kind of approved place. Ridiculous. Its also funny considering that we have a snow day today, which makes it like three of them in 25 years, and I feel like by 8:43 am on my day off I've done more thinking than school has inspired in me for the past three weeks.

Anyway, as I've been researching material to support my thesis that "Society does not allow man to make more mistakes than woman," I have come across some things that are actually interesting, and I actually didn't already know--which naturally means the exact opposite of what we learn in school. I could go on forever condemning the nature of religion, but interestingly the work I'm reading by Joseph Campbell, widely considered the premier expert in the world on mytholgoy, has done an excellent job of supporting my own beliefs.

The specific book I'm looking at now is Occidental Mythology, which is volume three of "The Masks of God" series. In a blurb on the back of the tome the purpose is simply described: "A systematic and fascinating comparison of the themes that underlie the art, worship, and literature of the Western world." For my paper I'm researching the concept of "The Warrior Hero," but in my reading I came across a portion of the book that so wonderfully explains one of my biggest thoughts on religion, only in the words of one of the highest experts in the world, rather than my own. Its nice when a world-renowned expert has come to the same conclusion that I did before I'd ever heard of him. Campbell writes:

"The world is full of origin myths, and all are actually false. The world is full, also, of great traditional books tracing the history of man (but focused narrowly on the local group) from the age of mythological beginnings, through periods of increasing plausibility, to a time almost within memory, when the chronicles begin to carry the record, with a show of rational factuality, to the present. Furthermore, just as all primitive mythologies serve to validate the customs, systems of sentiments, and political aims of their respective local groups, so do these great traditional books. On the surface they may appear to have been composed as conscientious history. In depth they reveal themselves to have been conceived as myths: poetic readings of the mystery of life from a certain interested point of view. But to read a poem as a chronicle of fact is--to say the least--to miss a point. To say a little more, it is to prove oneself a dolt. "

In other words, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Qu'ran--they are all just as ludicrous and mythical of works as the famous myths that come out of ancient Greece and Rome. Yet, somehow, modern people of any of the related religions seem to feel a need for literal translation of their holy text, and have completely neglected to realize that while they may disregard the writ of another religion as poetic farce, the truth is their religion has the exact same problem. Nearly every contemporary inhabitant of this earth would readily admit that there is no way the fables of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades could possibly be true--but somehow that admittance fails to cross over into the realm of epic poetry that relates to Jesus, Mohamed, and others. You may say that of course there was never a Pandora that opened some ridiculous box to create all the worlds problems, but it is pretty much fact to you that Jesus did indeed make bread and fish pop up out of thin air. For some reason, that isn't unlikely at all.

Unfortunately, even if someone of devout faith were to read my words on the subject, it is certain that they would immediately disregard them, just as quickly as they disregard any utterance of common sense or fact that sheds poorly on the truth of their religious beliefs. Sadly, the world has trained us to be ignorant and nervous about confronting the beliefs we are trained in. Its just as Campbell said--all the holy texts are simply epic poetry written to validate the beliefs, customs, etc. of the particular group that originally wrote the work.

This naturally leads to religious friction as we see it today--people in Mecca are going to have trouble conceding the fact that the million different translations of their Qu'rans are all bullshit, because they have to use this mythology as an excuse to prove themselves over the Christians that they hate. The Christians, naturally, do exactly the same thing--preaching the truth of the Bible and ignoring the fact that it is just as fictional as the Qu'ran. Which is funny, considering that there are a lot of similarites between the stories and myths themselves among Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Campbell shows that many of these stories even connect pretty directly to the tales of earlier religions that we now consider farcical. Religious texts are nearly all derivative of each other--yet somehow to a believer in one, the rest are ridiculous.

And now I'll leave you with a quote from Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (one of the great contemporary satirists) that I will NOT speak on. You can think on it as you'd wish:

It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was the slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.
But the Gospels actually taught this:
Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected.

Thinking Hurts

2008-01-13T14:56:00.000-06:00

I don't feel like having any enlightened thoughts today, let alone writing about them. Instead--you get to read about my weekend. Finals are over, one semester down--only one more to survive until college. Time ticks by, so slowly, so slowly. So far, so good--I got a B- on my Stats final, and I needed a 72% to keep my B. However, the only other class that I'm worried whatsoever about keeping my gpa in would be AP English. You'd think a 92 and a 96 plus a take home essay final would make me feel confident, but noooo. You see, apparently it isn't necessary to put two 400 point impromptus into the grades until AFTER our final, its part of the new plan to give students premature ulcers. I wouldn't be worried, even now, if it weren't for the fact that our impromptus are inconceivably worth twice as much as a reading test--so reading two books and getting perfect scores is less important in our class than writing really well during one class period. Sheesh.

I finished two books this weekend--Empire by Orson Scott Card (which I'd probably give a B), and Again to Carthage by John L. Parker, Jr. (which ranks probably as an A-). Predictably, Again to Carthage didn't quite match the sheer wonder of its precursor Once A Runner, but after a 30 year wait between the novels and considering that OaR is out of print, anticipation alone was enough to make the book a great read. I'd recommend it to any runner, but I think you really have to read OaR first--which could be hard since its running about $300 on ebay. REPRINT IT PLEASE!!!!

Speaking of running, I just came back from a nice one--a little 5.5 mile jaunt through the wintry (but not white) neighborhood. Considering that I'm probably averaging 16-20 miles per week (which is next to nothing), I felt pretty good and blasted out the legs a little bit. I think I'll probably get another 4 or so in tomorrow morning before school, plus the obligatory group run after. I just ordered new spikes! A pair of Ventulus 2s and a pair of Maxcat 2s--I'm very excited. That leaves my list of usable spikes for track season at Nike Zoom Ventulus +, Nike Zoom Miler ID, Reebok JW Foster Distance, Nike Zoom Ventulus 2, Nike Zoom Maxcat 2, Nike Zoom Forevers (spikeless), and Nike Zoom Streak XC (flats). A nice selection, if I do say so myself. I considered buying a pair of the top of the line Brooks distance spike (I can't remember the model number) but even I couldn't justify that purchase.

An Empire of Idiots

2008-01-09T18:28:00.000-06:00

Like is so often the case when I'm reading work by Orson Scott Card, I find him writing exactly the thoughts that I'm so often mulling over but unable to express properly. I could do commentary on quotes from his work forever--I just read the short stories collection First Meetings in Ender's Universe, and there was some excellent material in that--but what I find to be most interesting at the moment is a quote from one of his more recent books, Empire, which I just started today after my AP Stats final.

The main character, at least as far as I've gotten, Reuben Malich, comments that Princeton University suffers from exactly the same problem that I personally think our whole education system suffers from--"In class after class, seminar after seminar, he learned that far too many students were determined to remain ignorant of any real-world data that didn't fit their preconceived notions." In my opinion, educators don't help matters either.

No matter how many times you hear teachers tell you that their class will be different, that they'll teach you to defy conventional thought, enrich your mind, prepare you for the mental rigor of college and adult life--the truth will always remain that they are still force-feeding you the same tired thoughts and ideaologies that American school children have been learning for generations. Sometimes the facts or materials might change slightly, but the points and lessons are nearly always the same.

Think about it--for how many years have students sat in the same kind of desk, in the same kind of row, looking at the same kind of notes on the same kind of chalkboard. The only REAL difference is that now the learning is based entirely on standardized testing, and as far as developments go--that was a bad one.

One great example in the school has to be the fact that high school English students continue to read almost exclusively the "classics"--books which we often rever for their deft handling of ideas that were radical hundreds of years ago, but have seeped deep enough into society to mold our common thoughts and preconceptions. Not that some of these texts shouldn't be read--of course they should, they remain some of the best WRITING ever--but why don't contemporary students ever read some of the brilliant contemporary literature available that deals with modern issues? Is it that the students aren't mentally "ready" for these complex thoughts, or that teachers haven't adequately prepared us?

Think about it--unless you've actively sought out classes that deal with contemporary issues (at DGN classes like Poli Sci and Issues in World Cultural Geography come to mind) than you probably haven't been confronted with all that much modern radical thinking. In fact, it seems pretty likely that the history of the civil war has stayed somewhat the same over the past 100 years, not to mention over the course of the 3 or 4 times students have been taught about it. Classes, particularly gen. ed. and overarching subjects like "world cultures," "(insert type here) history," and "English Literature," often deal with modern world issues little or not at all.

Why is that? If school is supposed to be preparing students to step into the real world and be enlightened, effective thinkers, shouldn't it make sense to verse them in what is important in the world that they live in? In this case, I think schools can be considered partially responsible for contributing to the modern trend of ignorance that then breeds hatred and intolerance. For instance--if students aren't taught WHY other countries hate us, what's to stop them from getting caught up with misguided patriotic revelry? If we are meant to question our leaders and actually participate in our democracy, shouldn't we know what is applicable now, rather than the literal text of the constitution, which was written over 200 years ago and is now liberally interpreted--even by Republicans? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Even though Orson Scott Card's Empire thusfar deals with a character who is coming down on what he not-so-gracefully refers to as "crazy leftists," there is a valid point to be made. In my personal opinion, ANYONE who considers themself specifically "republican" or "democrat" is bordering a line of ignorance and sheer stupidity. The point that Card makes, whether you're more of a liberal or conservative thinker, is valid. Whatever you identify yourself as is probably based primarily on the teachings of your parents, older siblings, adult church and activity leaders, and yes--teachers. While they may make valid points, how can you ever say that they are infallible and most certainly right? Don't take their beliefs as preconceived notions. Throw out the political labels that lead to such childish infighting and disagreement. What does "democrat" or "republican" mean besides narrowminded? Consider the fact that sometimes, in fact quite often, NEITHER side has it all figured out.

The Art of Bullshit

2008-01-08T13:49:00.000-06:00

So, I've been meaning to keep my blog updated--I suppose I have an irrational hope that somehow it'll hit it big and become a halfway decent outlet for my opininos to reach the public--but due to the necessity of keeping my IHSA piece on the top of the page for awhile, I've held off. Since the article clearly has stopped being read, and the thread never really took off on Dyestat.com, I thought perhaps I'd entertain my multitudinous audience with something else, a nice change of pace.

Unfortunately, I have nothing particularly relevant to write about, since during break I ranked having fun ahead of being intellectual, and now being back in school I've had to deal with the harsh reality of finals. (An aside--you DID read that correctly, finals week for Downers Grove North was indeed scheduled to come after two weeks off. Brilliant, right? If you are a DGN student, parent, teacher, or administrator, there was a staff editorial in the most recent Omega about the ludicrous scheduling.)

ANYWAYS--I still have nothing particularly interesting to write about, besides the fact that the classic rock radio playlists at 1:35-2:25 are absolutely the best all day. Any time I'm in the journalism office doing work instead of study hall, I turn the radio on--and 95.9 in particular is just killer at this time of the day. So far we've had some Led Zeppelin, Bon Jovi, Yes, Tom Petty, Van Halen etc. Even if you aren't a fan, it beats the selection in study hall. All I can ever hear is the blasting angry music from the girl behind me who has fooled herself into believing that she's discreet--even though I'm quite sure the teacher can hear her and just doesn't care. It's amazing that she doesn't froth at the mouth while listening to that stuff.

Back to the subject of finals, and school in general; I have an amazing skill that I would like to share with my readers (which isn't risky, considering that as far as I know, there are none). I like to call it "The Art of Bullshit." Perhaps you remember teachers telling you at various levels of school that they were beginning to prepare you for the real world--the next grade would be harsh, you couldn't possibly coast by, so get ready to buckle down. Let me be the first to tell you that they were lying. It is fully possible to completely and utterly BS your way through essays and books at any level of English.

Don't get me wrong, I suggest you read the required material. There is a reason those books are required--most of them are among the finest examples of school-approved literature available. However, as every student knows, sometimes there just isn't the time or the motivation, or maybe the book is just a real stinker--there are certainly some of them in every curriculum. When this is the case, it is possible to coast by on intuition, Sparknotes, online book criticisms (Harvard is nice), and fake text marking. I can't give away my secrets, or perhaps I'll never be able to make them work again--but trust me, you CAN fake it if necessary. If the reader is smart enough, they can even fake it on an impromptu or a reading test, but that may not work for everyone.

The point?--Not that reading is stupid, or that you should fake it and stop doing it. I totally disagree with that--I'm a huge proponent of literature. The real point at stake here is simply that schools have lied all along--they aren't preparing you for any real world, and its not particularly difficult to fake your way through (even in some AP level classes). It's all about knowing how to play a broken system--much like such "real-world" careers as big business and politics.

A POST-SCRIPT FOR THE READER: I'm sorry this was boring, I was jut blowing time during school and didn't edit it or anything. I promise eventually I'll write about things that are important. Keep checking back.

Incompetence Has Struck Again

2007-12-13T20:44:00.001-06:00

This editorial was printed in a less specific, truncated form in the Downers Grove North school newspaper, Omega, on Dec. 20. The extended version printed here focuses more on the faulty policy interpretation of the IHSA and their various false claims, and how it specifically affected the sport of cross country. Any Illinois runners who read this--please print it off and give it to your coach. Coaches--please consider giving this to your athletic directors and principals. Something needs to be done--and I think change can happen.

Incompetence Has Struck Again:

Poorly interpreted policies hold back student-athletes, keep runners from state meet

by Jacob Brower

A sign over the Benet Academy team tent read "Statetionals," and runners and fans alike could be seen wearing t-shirts emblazoned with slogans like "Schaumburg: The Real Class 3A State Meet." Internet forums were blazing, and editorials were pouring from local newspapers, but it all came down to a distance running bloodbath on the field at Busse Woods Forest Preserve, the Oct. 27 site of the Schaumburg sectional—from which five teams would qualify for the class 3A boys’ state cross country meet. Ten or so teams would be left behind, despite being ranked within the top twenty-five in all of Illinois. Many knew there was little hope of advancing, and were approaching the qualifying round as the real state meet.

"We saw Schaumburg as the first of two state meets," said junior Alex Lyons, former state track qualifier and a varsity runner at highly ranked Lyons Township. "Our coach actually tried to design our training so that we would peak at our sectional because of how many quality teams were there. We felt like any team that got out of that sectional was going to be top five to top ten at the state meet."

All five boys’ teams qualifying out of Schaumburg would go on to finish in the top seven at the state meet, ahead of the second qualifier from any other sectional. The first four girls’ teams from Schaumburg would go first through fourth at the state meet—the last would finish tenth. The two weakest sectionals would yield the last six teams at state finals.

Geographic Intent
The standard was set earlier in the year, when, according to an Oct. 8 Sun Times article by Tina Akouris, IHSA assistant executive director Ron McGraw, the administrator in charge of cross country, stated that the cross country state series "are not intended to advance the best teams." The goal was followed through excellently on that point, as approximately ten ranked teams were left out of the boys’ 3A state meet, while many less deserving squads made the trip to Peoria.

Policy 19, the guideline used to establish this goal, states that sectional and regional assignments in all sanctioned sports are intended to advance teams to the state meet that encompass a geographic representation of the entire state, and that no consideration be given to the strength of teams in a certain area. The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) claims that this makes it impossible to avoid unfair sectional assignments, and it is acknowledged that the best teams will not necessarily be the ones competing in the state finals.

For some reason, with the season over, there has been no mention of the fact that despite continuously hiding behind Policy 19, the IHSA seems to have interpreted their policies strangely, not achieved the goals they were arguing for, and not done as much as was possible to benefit the athletes in their governance. McGraw claimed that the true intent of Policy 19 was to "provide the most opportunity for the masses," which, unfortunately, was a goal at which the IHSA failed miserably, as they were unable to represent an even remotely geographically broad section of Illinois’ geography at the state cross country meet.

"The fact is that this [sectional assignments] is not a new concern and I can’t foresee that it will change in the immediate future," said McGraw in a Chicago Suburban News article by Mike Considine. "It’s not about being fair or unfair. It’s about the application of these policies across the entire state. It works better for some areas than others. It’s clear that it doesn’t work very well for class 3A cross country."

The IHSA already attempted to address the need for geographical representation—pushed by principals of the smaller, non-Chicagoland schools—by breaking the traditional two class system for cross country into three classes: 1A, 2A, and 3A, listed from smallest student body to largest, respectively. Since southern and central Illinois are primarily represented by the smaller two classes, and the majority of the Chicagoland teams are part of class 3A, the new system already accounts for the geographic disparity of a two class state meet by allowing smaller schools their own level at which to participate.

Unfortunately, the IHSA continues to treat boys’ cross country like three separate sports—seeding each class on a different map for its own geographic representation, instead of admitting that it is one sport represented by three separate classes. Nowhere in Policy 19 does it mention that each class must be considered separately when referring to the overall geographic representation of the state meet.

"The policy ensures that geographic representation is the key to assignments," said McGraw in an Omega interview. "The three classes are treated as separate groups. Each class has its own map that I use when making assignments. It [Policy 19] is very clear as to its intent. Part number one states that: ‘The state series is designed to determine a state champion. The state series is not intended to necessarily advance the best teams in the state to the state final.’"

The IHSA has continually pointed out that even in football and basketball state finals, there is no emphasis on getting the two best teams to finals. Yet, Policy 19 has separate guidelines for seeding bracketed team sports such as football and basketball, which state that "seeding should only occur at the lowest level of competition." So, while bracketed state finals won’t necessarily contain the two teams with the best records, they will have allowed for talent via seeding at the lowest level of competition, which put the four strongest teams in separate parts of the bracket–and the teams that ultimately perform the best in the post-season make finals, which is not the case in the cross country system. Since cross country is formatted with twenty teams making finals, instead of two, the seeding should be done at the very lowest level—the regional tournaments. Regionals seeded primarily based on the historical strength of area programs would alleviate the stranglehold that occurs in sectionals such as this year’s at Schaumburg, without drastically changing a geographic policy that doesn’t work.

The Failings of Policy 19
Despite the IHSA’s staunch verbal backing of Policy 19, the ridiculous sectional assignments only managed to advance teams from 31 of Illinois’ 102 counties to the state meet—between all three classes. Twenty of the counties were represented by only one team each, meaning that the vast majority of the field was centered around eleven counties, or about one tenth of the state’s entire geographic area.

In class 3A, boys and girls combined, 39 of the 40 state qualifying teams were from the Chicago-area—only one was from the South–-hardly the geographic spectrum the IHSA seemed to be aiming for with Policy 19. The disparity is logical enough in its own right—3A is comprised of the largest schools in the state, located mostly in the suburbs of Chicago. However, since the assignments were so lopsided, and they still only managed to include suburban teams, it seems like all the IHSA did was manage to invite weaker squads from the same area. Instead of hiding behind the ridiculous geographic argument when it comes to class 3A sectional assignments, the IHSA should just admit that central and southern Illinois are represented by the smaller classes, and that the 3A teams will come primarily from the Chicago-area.

Of course, it’s clear that the IHSA didn’t really assign the teams to specific sectionals in a coherent geographic manner in the first place. The four class 3A sectionals were located in Schaumburg, Palatine, Skokie, and Normal. Palatine and Schaumburg—the sectional that was assigned sixteen of the top twenty-five teams in the state—are only 15 minutes away from each other, and Skokie is only another 40 further. That makes sense, considering that the majority of 3A schools are in these areas, but how can McGraw and the IHSA claim that such physically close sectionals were assigned with geographic representation in mind? Seventy-five percent of the schools fighting for the state meet were doing so in sectionals located in the Chicago area, and even the sectional that was two hours away in Normal included a Chicago-area team—Neuqua Valley, the recent boys’ cross country national champions.

One needs only to consider the fact that two of the three schools in Naperville—North and Central—ran in the stacked Schaumburg sectional, whereas Neuqua Valley, also in Naperville, was forced to drive two hours to the single southern sectional. If the goal was to get the southern teams to the state meet, it wouldn’t make much sense to send the top team in the country all the way down to Normal, past the other sectionals, and deny the non Chicago-area schools a chance to qualify. Since the Naperville schools were split into sectionals hours apart, it makes even less sense that teams like Evanston and Thornridge were competing in the same sectional, or that Granite City had to drive three hours to Normal in order to fulfill their "geographic" assignment.

"In order to appreciate the assignment of any one school you would need to see the entire assignment map and understand that it is all interrelated," said McGraw, "You cannot simply look at one or two schools and truly attempt to understand the process. In this system there are always schools on the edge of a cluster that could have gone one direction or the other. Sometimes it is a function of attempting to assign the same number of schools to each sectional."

Of course, Policy 19 specifically states that the state series must only have a "reasonable balance of schools assigned to each first-level site." For cross country, that would apply to regionals, which could, based on the rules, be seeded unevenly, making it a rather moot argument that the map would have to be altered as drastically as would seem necessary to include Neuqua Valley in the Normal sectional, instead of any of the three closer tournament sites.

The Solution
McGraw says that Policy 19 cannot be ignored without changes put in place by the advisory, made up of principals, who would have to vote for talent-seeded sectional assignments, but the truth remains that all sports are different and as such have different needs—and if the IHSA board of directors really thought it was a problem, they could choose to amend the specific policy. Unfortunately, it seems as thought the board of directors may be unwilling to make that much effort for cross country. According to McGraw, the athletic director advisory council passed a vote calling for a fifth 3A sectional to further spread out the talent in the western suburbs, but the administrators and board of directors decided not to pass a change to an already new–-yet flawed-–policy.

"The IHSA board of directors has complete control over changing any policy,"
said McGraw, "including Policy 19."

In the first Omega article about the sectional assignments, McGraw was asked whether he thought the sectional assignments were fair. He replied, "Based upon the language, directives, and ultimate goal of Policy 19, yes I do."

When asked the same question in our latest interview, his response hadn’t changed, but he wondered, if as an objective reporter, I didn’t agree, when presented with all the facts and details of Policy 19 that I had previously been unclear on. Honestly, I still feel the same way I did before interviewing him. I don’t think the IHSA did as much as it could–-even within the parameters of Policy 19–-to make the state series as fair as possible. The policy is vague in places that would allow for some changes to be made, and the board of directors could amend it as long as they followed to geographic principle. Now I have a clearer picture of the difficulty of applying Policy 19 to all the sports, and the process that the IHSA must go through to make changes–-there are other runners that can also appreciate this–-yet it still seems like more effort could be made to even the playing field just a little bit, which is all that anyone has really asked.

"I don’t want to be making excuses for what happened [to Lyons Township] at sectionals. We did not run well and we got beat," said Lyons. "The IHSA does not control how well we race, so I do not hold them responsible for our finish…but my guess is other teams like Geneva were feeling like they ran a strong race and got left out thanks to a poor decision by the IHSA. [The Schaumburg sectional] takes away the opportunity to race the state meet from some of the most successful programs in our state. The state meet should be as close to the best 20 teams as it can be. Obviously, it will never be perfect."

With a few minor tweaks though, it could be immeasurably more fair. Considering the class 3A didn’t have a broad geographic base in the first place, the best solution I can see that would still fall into the same geographic principle that was upheld at this year’s state meet would be for the board of directors to concede that there are significant issues with the application of Policy 19 on boys cross country, as well as other non-major sports like volleyball and swimming. Specific guidelines could be added, similar to the policy for bracketed tournaments, which allow for seeding at the regional level–-which would be done in more reasonable geographic boundaries. With three sectionals in the same general area, this wouldn’t seem to be all that difficult with only a slight amendment to IHSA policy.

Clearly assignments will never be perfect–a few teams will always be right on the cusp, but as long as there is a sport with 20 teams in the finals, there should be an effort to get the best teams possible, within the directives, to the meet. If the only real goal, as stated in Policy 19's current form, is to crown a state champion–-why are there three trophies, and medals that go twenty-five deep? As long as more than two teams compete for the win, in a very deep sport such as Illinois cross-country, then the state meet should be comprised of the very best field that can be accumulated within the rules.