School choice and high school recruiting/competitive balance controversies collided this month in a decision by the state's top athletic association to divorce private and public school regions and post-season play.
We also discuss:
• Mardi Gras w/ the Mobile Mask
• Bills being advanced by local lawmakers
• Primary elections set
All this and more by smashing the play button...
Poll — How should AHSAA handle private/public competition?
What option do you believe would solve some of the friction in public vs. private school athletic dynamics?
Transcript on next page.
[0:13] Step-in host or... Substitute host. Yeah, sub-host, Scott Johnson. Relief.
[0:18] Go around the table, introduce yourselves. Grant McLaughlin. Kyle Hamrick. Tommy Hicks. Tommy, let's kick off with you. You and Grant tackled the cover story this weekend. We've had tons of news. You've had tons of news rolling out your way, one of them being this fracturing that's happening in the AHSAA. Alabama High School Athletic Association. I can never get that right. Anyway. It's okay. A lot of people don't. Yeah, it was a busy Friday for you. It was a busy Friday.
[0:51] Yeah, I mean, that's the big news. Everybody knew that some sort of announcement was coming. They didn't know if it was going to be that the AHSAA was going to remain as they had or if they were going to take a different path. And they took the different path in a vote of 13 to 2 by the Central Board of Control. They decided to separate public schools from private schools in championship play only. Now, they're allowed to play each other in the regular season if they want, which is going to be the next story that comes out of all of this. Because will private schools still play public schools? Will public schools still play private schools? or will there be an even bigger, a wider gap of division between the two because they figure if they're not going to play them down the road for championships for our play during the regular season. Okay, so they'll still be in region. They'll still be in region. The classifications in the past have been 1A through 7A. Now it'll be 1A through 6A for public schools. And then two divisions, basically a big school and small school division, for private schools.
[2:05] So here in Mobile area, we have 10 private schools, and that's it. Five are in the bigger division, which let's see if I can get them all. Faith Academy, McGill, St. Michael, St. Paul's, UMS will be in the bigger division. And then Cottage Hill, St. Luke's, Bayside, Bayshore, and who am I missing? Mobile Christian. Mobile Christian.
[2:33] Thank you. will be in the lower or smaller division for private schools. Now, what does school choice have to do with any of this? Because that's been thrown around here. You mean the CHOOSE Act? Yes. Yes. Yeah, that was a factor in all of this because state people got involved. I'm going to let Grant talk about that aspect. Yeah. Well, I feel like, you know, there were a bunch of social media trolls who started, As soon as the decision came down, I mean, you got a bunch of randos commenting on it on social media, saying that this was kind of like a lukewarm compromise to the whole CHOOSE Act situation.
[3:14] For those of you who don't know, the AHSAA considers students who transfer from public to private schools via public funds, which is the CHOOSE Act program. They view that as financial aid and their own financial aid guidelines state students who get that assistance to move to a new school any school have to wait a year before they can participate in varsity athletics they can play junior varsity they can play junior varsity but they cannot play in varsity of you know the governor's office immediately you know rebutted with uh hell no you know we're gonna we need to be able to our students should be able to play right now. Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth, you know, got on social media and said that the.
[4:02] This decision that came down last week also said this is a lukewarm compromise. You know, they're punishing CHOOSE Act students by further segregating them into their own private school divisions. And the whole idea is bad, is to boil it down. And basically, the argument is, what I understand it to be, is the private schools have this unfair recruiting ability.
[4:32] Yeah, I mean, yeah. What the AHSAA was trying to do is their bylaw was, if you receive financial aid, whether it was CHOOSE Act or anything, any other way, then this rule was in effect. And they decided to, since that was in their bylaws, they were going to maintain that. Governor Ivey was not pleased with this decision. That's right. Stepped up, and then that's where you had all this manner. So I think that was the impetus to, okay, what are you going to do? How are you going to address this? And I think it was like a short, like two or three-month period with all of this going on. They're going, all right, now what direction are we going to go in? In my opinion, they should have waited. And a lot of coaches that I've talked to in this area said they felt the same way that, you know, why are we rushing into a decision that's going to be,
[5:29] you know, hold us separate. It's going to separate the organization. Why are you doing this now? And this was kind of the impetus for that. But so now what does that mean for the future, I think, is the big question. Yeah, I think that I'm sorry to cut you off, Scott, but to me, when I read the decision and I was doing my reporting for this, I I.
[5:53] There are some who feel that this kind of falls short of actually addressing the problem of the governor's challenge. And I kind of, to some extent, agree, because it's just reshuffling the deck of cards. It doesn't appear that the governor is backing off her initial challenge to the AHSAA's decision on financial aid. Quick question. How will region games work when you play a—.
[6:29] So each group is divided into regions now, 1A to 6A. Yeah, private schools as well. Public schools only. Private schools have their own division. So it's all out-of-region games on record? Like if the public school— Yeah, out-of-region games are where you could play a private school if you're a public school or vice versa. Okay, interesting. It would be a non-region game. So there's not really an incentive to play the private school? There's not. Okay. There's not. Unless, you know, you're a school that's played, you're a public school that's played a private school for a lot of years and there's a tradition there. I mean, some people are going to want to hold on to that. Some people are not. I mean, one of the things that came from this is normally schools already have their football schedules done now. Right. Well, you couldn't because, one, you didn't know what classification you were going to be and then how your region was, and as such, how your region was going to set up. And then, two, you didn't know if there was going to be the split between the private and public and private schools. So now that becomes the big issue. Now everybody is scrambling trying to find games. Are there going to be public schools who just make the decision we're not going to play private and all of our non-region games will be against public school opponents? Or will they be open-minded and say, sure, man, I don't care. I mean, let's just keep it local.
[7:54] The biggest effect of this is in private schools because there are only like 44 private schools in the entire state. And so when you play in a region that's got like eight or nine teams, you get seven, let's say seven games. Well, you got to find three outside your region. One, your region is going to be spread out. I mean, the local schools are going to be playing teams as far away as Phoenix City, Alabama, and as far away as Dothan. I mean, those are drives for both sides. I mean, Phoenix City is more out, and Dothan will have to come in more than the local schools will have to go out to find games. Lee Scott and Opelika is the one that's really slammed. Their region has three teams in Birmingham, one team in Tuscaloosa, and three teams in Huntsville. That's their region.
[8:47] That's a lot of travel. That's a lot of expense. Wow. That changes things immensely for them. And it seems, Tommy, that a lot of the coaches you talked to said that this would decrease the quality of the competition in these sports. Why is that? Well, it waters down the competition. You don't know. I mean, even one coach said, look, you might win a public school championship, but are you really the best team in the state? Maybe the team that wins a private school wins.
[9:16] Is a better team. You don't know that, but you're also separating those teams. So you're watering down everything on both sides, I think. And that's one of the things that the coaches seem to bring out.
[9:28] I don't think there were very many coaches at all who approved of the decision. Wow. What's interesting is the two dissenting votes are both from this area. Oh yeah. Jerome Woods, the principal at Blunt and Terry Curtis, who's the president of the board. Wow. Voted no against it, too, who was a longtime coach at UMS, right? The hero of UMS. But he also had coached in public school, so he knew both sides. And he said, I just think we should have stayed together. Let's take a year or two years to look at this to see if this is the right approach and then maybe do something. Everybody felt like it was mainly a rushed decision. So you're saying that Terry Curtis has seen the clouds from both sides now and he can give a good judgment. I think Joni Mitchell said that, but I didn't say that. Some of the irony here I saw is like they're making this decision because of the public-private dynamic. But at least here locally, some of the largest allegations of recruiting are the city school systems, which are public schools. So I don't think anything in the CHOOSE Act or how they're separating it would even...
[10:39] Address those issues here locally no so i mean you can't you can't get choose money act to go to go to an out you know to be in a city school system you have to pay to go to a city school system if you're not living there but you know and then look at what used to be class 7a which would be class 6a now there were no private schools in that so to them it's it's going to be everything as normal i mean they never had any locally in this local region they didn't have.
[11:09] Any private schools there so it's not any different to them they're just dropping down or you know by name dropping down a class and and going on about their business and it's not just you know it's not just football this is affecting all the sports sure i'm thinking volleyball with bayside i mean if bayside's just kind of sequestered into a small division i mean i i don't know is there any competitive balance happening in the small big well i mean the bayside thing is interesting because in football they want they played for the 3a state championship but the volleyball team played for the 7a state yeah because their competitive balance was so competitive balance and the and the 1.35 uh modifier which was added to your enrollment figures which is how they determine a school's classification that was always in there so every Every private school
[12:03] was basically going to play in a classification one level above what their attendance.
[12:10] Their enrollments said that they should be. And then you add...
[12:14] The competitive balance factor into it for teams that have a lot of success, like Bayside's volleyball program, and then that's going to keep bumping you up. Every time you have success at one class, if you keep winning state championships, they're going to bump you and bump you, which led them all the way to 7A. But do you bump up into the big classification if you're a small private school?
[12:39] Bayside is a private school. Yeah, well, they're on the lower side, the smaller side, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, they're going to bump that way? I don't know how that's going to work. I mean, I think that that's just it. There's not a whole lot that we know about how this other is going to work other than this is a division you'll play in your regions. Now, how it affects us locally, again, will be the Super 7 is coming here for the first time ever. Well, that was going to be, in the past, it was going to be nine total games. It was going to be seven traditional football games to flag. Well, now there are four flag divisions, three of them in public, one in private. And now you have six classifications for the public schools. You have two classifications for the private schools. You got 12 games. It was already going to be a pilot program of stretching from three days for the Super 7 to four. Now, are they going to have to add even another day to get everything in the first week? So all of that's still to be determined, too. That's going to be an interesting aspect of all of this and how it plays out. Well, I don't envy the task of keeping up with all the dynamics here, but we appreciate you having me.
[13:58] All right. And with that, we're going to take a break. We'll be right back. We've got a special.
[14:12] And we're back, and we have a special guest joining us for the second segment, Madame Masque, or Mosque. I don't know. Madame Masque. Mademoiselle. Oui, oui. But, Allison, we are just, what's the word, plummeting toward, on the verge, on the cusp of. We're just starting the grah, but I told Allison last week, I feel like we're already in deep grah, because we've been thinking more about Marty.
[14:42] I've been going in Mardi Gras mode since, what, October? Yes. But, I mean, but we've only had, like, what, two parades, the Dolphin Island Parades? There's been three. There's two on Dolphin Island, and then there was one in Robertsdale that I went to. That was really fun. Yes, that was their first one. And then Friday night kicks off parades in downtown Mobile. Woo-woo! Woo-woo!
[15:06] It's going to be wild. So, normally, it's just one parade. It's just the Condé Cavaliers, not just the Condé Cavaliers. It's a great, huge parade that always draws a huge crowd. But this year, it's going to be a little bit different because the Senior Bowl happens to fall on the same weekend as the first parading weekend of downtown Mobile. So prior to the Condé Parade is going to be the Senior Bowl Players Parade. That's going to be at 530, and it is on the same route, but it is much shorter. It's only a few blocks. It's going to go from like on Royal in front of the Renaissance until right around Bambal Square. You can't tire out those players tonight before the game. No, you can't. I mean, it might be a little bit of a traffic jam because they got a lot of people going to be in this parade. From every player, every coach, every member of the staff, cheerleaders from New Orleans Saints. Oh, wow. Not to mention multiple players.
[16:04] Mobile Mardi Gras groups are in this parade. So the IMs, MOTs, Wild Mavillians, the Dollies. It's going to be a, I mean, it seems like they may be a little backed up right there. It's a lot of people to fit on those couple blocks. But, and then right after that, the Condes roll at 630. I want to see that, but since it's such a limited route, I may have to plan accordingly. I am still trying to figure out how I'm going to get there. I like a good Mardi Gras route challenge there, so this will be fun. It will be. And then after the Condé Parade is actually the Senior Bowl concert featuring.
[16:39] Muscadine Bloodline at Mardi Gras Park at 730. That's going to be a cool night of fun. It will be. The Condé Parade will not be over by then. So it's just going to be a pretty wild night.
[16:51] Although it is going to be very cold. So I think that a lot of people may that might deter a lot of people from coming downtown. If you're a true Mobillion. I'm going to be there. You'll be there. Yes. I'm going to be there. You'll have your long johns on. And your hand warmers. That just means more doubloons for me. We call Kyle the Mardi Gras monster. Mm-hmm. Interesting. Which he might actually have that title stripped away from him. I'm going to be curious to see. We have to say congratulations to Kyle because he just got married last weekend. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Will he still be as much of a monster now that he's a married man? We'll see. Only time will tell. Yes. Now that he's tethered down to reality. Yes, the old ball and chain. Yes. The revelry is dead, Kyle. I'm kidding. We got two cars.
[17:45] That's hilarious. Congratulations, Kyle. Congrats. Thank you. Well, Allison, you said there was breaking news, too. Oh, there is. Well, let me touch on the Condi parade just for a second. Okay, sorry. She's stringing us along here. Yeah.
[17:57] Very exciting big news there is that the mayor is actually the grand marshal of this parade. And we don't usually do that in Mobile. No. So this is going to be quite an exciting moment for downtown. Spiro will be leading the parade. And then sort of related to that as a grand marshal situation. So if you follow us on social and you read the magazine, you know that this fall, a South DIP group, Order of Rolling River, canceled their parade. It was concerns over the price of sheriff's deputies' escorts. And when we reported on that, the sheriff's department actually changed their policy and refunded them money. However, the group still had to cancel their parade because it was just too short notice for them. However, another group came up and they're doing like a people's parade, Fowl River People's Parade. They're going to parade in the same time slot and the same route that Order of Rolling River did. And this is breaking news. So as a show of goodwill, Sheriff Paul Birch is actually grand marshalling that parade. Oh, fun. Yeah. And now is that going to be downtown? I've never done any of the boat parades. That's on the Mardi Gras bucket list. Oh, it's a boat parade. No, it's on it's on DIP. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm missing out there. Oh, it's fine. But normally they would have like a boat in the parade that's been towed. Right, right. Did they have a Mardi Gras boat parade?
[19:23] Well, that's just boats. Yeah. No. I have to get one going. No, that's what I always saw. Rolling River was on the river. I guess since it's rolling, that makes more sense. South DIP, yeah. And then, well, I went to the two Dolphin Island parades these past couple weeks, and they have a lot of boats in their parades. No, I'm talking about actually on the water. We need that. That's what I mean. We need to get one going. The only issue with that, because I've been to some Halloween boat parades, and when they throw stuff, Unfortunately, it usually falls in the water, and it's a big trash issue. We've got to figure that out, but I'm all about this. Yeah, we need to get a city crew rolling behind the boat parade. Or just have people with nets. They're scooping it up as they go by.
[20:14] That'd be my job. I'd save all the doubloons and salted caramel and moon pies for myself. That'd be my fee. Well, I was just looking at we've got all of the extra masks in the back of the office here and they are flying out of here. So and so I think they are flying off the shelves as well. Where all can we find the mobile mask? Oh, yeah. If you're in town this weekend, you got to pick one up. We're talking Rouse's by the King Cakes is where we have them all there.
[20:43] Greer's, all the Mardi Gras stores. Toomey's, Port City Thoreau's, Pops Midtown, plus the Mobile Carnival Museum, the History Museum of Mobile. Ashlyn Gallery. Ashlyn Gallery, Bienville Souvenirs. Urban Emporium. Yeah. And, of course, you can just, if you're listening from afar or don't want to get out of the house in this cold weather, You can buy one on mobilemask.com, and we will mail it to you. Oh, and you can also come down to Lanyap World Headquarters. Yeah. Lanyap slash Mobile Mask World Headquarters downtown across from the library, and we'll give you one. You know, we've been mailing them all over the U.S. It's kind of exciting to see how many people all over the place are so curious about what's going on with Mobile Market Girl. I love it. I love it. Or just miss it so if they're homesick for it. Either way, it's great. Yes. We should have a mask mobile and the Mobile Mask mascot. Well, the mascot, I know, will be down near the Lanyap office on Friday night, you know, hanging around. So if you want to get your picture with the mascot.
[21:47] I love it. And we're on government across from the Ben May Library. Yeah, across from the garage is where we kind of watch the parades. We're at a really good spot, a bend in the route. Yeah. They're coming around the corner. Stop giving up our secrets here,
[22:03] man. This is our hotspot. Yeah, so yeah, that's gonna be fun. I can't wait. All right. Well, thanks for joining us Allison and from here we're going to.
[22:26] Welcome back. We're down to our reduced staff. They're letting the, what is it called? Patients run the asylum here at the end. Me, Grant, and Kyle. And then there were three. So we're going to quickly go around and just hit some highlights. We've got the legislative session going on. We've got some updates there. We have new election news with the qualifying deadline for party nominations. So, Grant, real quick, what kind of things are you looking at in the statehouse? Well, we're going to start off with what's fresh. Mud dumping has now passed through a Senate committee and is moving on to the floor for, you know, the...
[23:16] The second to last, uh, review period. So, you know, this has kind of been an issue since the year started. It's been an issue for a lot longer than that, but the bill will require, uh, the core, so long as it has the funding and sites available, uh, to dedicate 70% of its maintenance dredge material toward beneficial use projects, such as shoreline restoration, marsh restoration. Uh, it's kind of been hotly debated, but it's going up to the Senate floor and has thus far sailed through both two House committees, the House chamber and Senate committee with, I think, either very few or almost none voting against it. So barring any other amendments, if the Senate passes it, it goes straight to the governor. If not, it'll go back to the House for further consideration.
[24:05] What's the next thing you're looking at? Yeah. You know, Matt Simpson had a bill passed through the House that will allow the death penalty to be given to child rapists. And it kind of passed without anybody, excuse me, it passed very few voting against it. But it followed a pretty lengthy debate in which, you know, the civil rights were brought up, the Supreme Court getting former cases and decisions wrong. And, you know, just how much money is it going to cost the state if somebody sues to prevent, you know, the law from taking effect, which could very well happen because the Supreme Court has previously found cases.
[24:52] Death penalty for child rapists to be cruel and unusual which as we all know is unconstitutional is an unconstitutional sort of deal uh now like we mentioned there yeah deadline to qualify was end of day friday for and what a day and what a day what a day it was tommy had it going on like we mentioned earlier with all the sports and then the election drama was spelling out as well So, Kyle, what races were interesting to you when that deadline closed? So, one that stood out to me is one of our local House of Representatives seats currently held by Adeline Clark for a long time. She has a challenger on the Democratic ticket for that seat by Shalila. That's a primary race. That is a primary challenge there.
[25:45] Shalila Dowdy is running against her. She was one of the plaintiffs in the Allen v. Milligan case that reconfigured the congressional district lines for the state. She's very involved with the local NAACP and Stand Up Mobile voter advocacy groups. That will be an interesting race to watch. Adeline has been up there for a good time now. I can't remember exactly how long she's held that seat, but she has been up there for a while.
[26:22] Is it Chip Brown has got a primary as well? I'm not sure about Chip Brown, but I do know that Chris Pringle, the Speaker pro-temporary of the House of Representatives, has a primary Chip challenger on the Republican side. Uh tim manning he is a uh he's a school teacher of civics i don't remember which school he works for um but i've met him a few times at some various things and he's running a, against Chris, who has been up there also for a long time, like Adline Clark has. Grant, I saw another, there was another GOP primary over in Baldwin in the state representatives. It was, oh gosh, what seat is it? It's not Fiddler's seat, it's... Matt Simpson has a challenger. Oh, he does, okay. Yeah, Danielle Duggar, who ran against him on his first term of office. There's another one, it's a woman, I can't remember the other state rep's name. Frances Holt Jones. Frances Holt Jones. There's a primary challenge. Joe Freeman in Orange Beach as her. It's going to be interesting. Successful. I'd also like to say real quick, I just went back to the Democratic Party's list of qualified candidates and I overlooked one.
[27:41] State Representative, former Mobile Mayor Sam Jones has a challenger on the Democratic side. I'm not sure if I pronounced this right, but it looks like Jill Hughes. I haven't heard that name before, but that person is running against Sam Jones, who was former mayor of Mobile for many years and has been in the statehouse for a long time as well. So that's a good handful of races. It'll be very interesting to see how they go. I could shake some stuff up. Any other highlights for me, Grant, on the legislature? No, it's really funny. I wrote the whole story, but Kyle's really the one. He knows what he's talking about. He's been covering the legislature. As some of our readers know, Kyle and I both cover the legislature, but he's been doing it a lot longer than I have. He really knows his stuff. There's a lot that's developing and a lot of things that are coming up to the top.
[28:38] We'll stay on it. Grant, you had some interesting things happen Friday. You were covering with the governor on the state level with the governor's race and the lieutenant governor's race. Both the governor and the lieutenant governor's race have had pretty major news over the last couple of business days. We'll start off just with the lieutenant governor's race. you know, early Friday. I mean, like literally, I mean, I'm talking before most of y'all were awake, I was getting messages that John Wall, the former GOP, state GOP chairman, was going to step down and run for lieutenant governor after the president put out a pretty impromptu endorsement, who, by the way, according to my sources, told no one. The president of the United States told no one that he was going to be endorsing Wall, and only after he posted it on his Truth Social did his own staff actually know what was going on. It's according to those who were informed by the White House.
[29:44] And, So, you know, basically within minutes of him filing the paperwork, his opponent, Wes Allen, who is the current secretary of state, snitched because John did not was not ready to put out a statement yet. When I called him, he told me he wasn't ready to talk on the record. And that was that was supposed to be that until Sunday afternoon when the announcement was supposed to come down. But Wes Allen jumped the gun, called him a Nehemiah. Whatever that means. Oh, that's, I think, his middle name. I thought it was his first name. Or his first name, yeah. Is that his first name? That's part of his name. Oh, I just thought it was some sort of dig. Yeah, interesting kind of spill there. That would be the second candidate that Wes Allen has outed, which is interesting because of his position as Secretary of State. I'm not saying there's anything improper there, but just the appearance makes me kind of tilt my head a little bit. Yeah, this is my first election season here in Alabama. Sorry, my second election season here in Alabama, first statewide. But back where I used to go in that former place, campaigns were normally kept pretty separate from public offices. Candidates were pretty strict about that across the board. It's kind of interesting to see Wes kind of toe the line between his campaign and his actual office.
[31:12] And Grant, on the governor's race. Yeah, very quickly here. So Tommy Tuberville, who is, you know, it's long been a debate whether or not he actually lives in Alabama, claims to live in Auburn. A lot of people seem to think he lives somewhere in Florida. Uh you know one of his opponents in the upcoming may 19th primary filed a qualifications challenge, alleging that through various uh reports that uh tuberville has to file through his public political action committee known as a pack and through his office um show that he is very rarely going to his uh claimed auburn home and is very often traveling to and fro florida.
[31:55] So, you know, the GOP executive committee, previously under the leadership of John Wall, you know, it was there. They said up and down that, yes, Tommy Tomberville can run. We believe he has been a resident in the state for as long as it has been required, which is seven years to run for governor. It just crosses that mark from what I remember when I was covering some of that several months ago. It would just cross that. Yeah. So under the under new leadership, you know, they are going they'll have, I think, 10 calendar days to consider all of the qualifications challenges that are filed, not just Tuberville's. And there are a few, apparently. And then if they choose to hear it, it'll be before the primary. And they'll give the opponent, which is Ken McPheeters, and then also Tuberville about 10 minutes at a hearing to kind of, you know, make their case. And then they'll make a determination as to whether Tuberville can remain on the ticket. A judge or the GOP? The GOP executive committee. Okay, yeah, because I would have thought that the judge would just have said, you know, take this back to the GOP and deal with it. All right. Well, going to be really interesting to see how the primaries roll out. They're going to, that happens May on the second week of May or? May 19th. Okay. May 19th. That is the primary.
[33:22] And, you know, we'll kind of see what happens. Keep an eye on it. All right. Well, thanks for listening guys. And we'll be back next week. Bye. The LACNA pod is a.
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