Is military influenced towns better in sports year in and year out other than.....

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

regular towns???

[dada]

I don't know. Sure with all the military moves they kid new players every year from all over the country...but they also lose players every year. Killeen in '92 played with a lot of heart after the Luby's incident...they were on a mission. I don't know much about the zoning. I remember having a Superior having one son at Killeen playing basket ball and one son at Cove playing football.

[raidercheerdad]

In Texas, that would include El Paso, Wichita Falls, and South San Antonio??? I think not.

[dada]

In Texas, that would include El Paso, Wichita Falls, and South San Antonio??? I think not.

I was thinking that myself...what are more "Military-influenced" teams...you can make a case for Temple, Harker Heights, Killeen, Ellison, Copperas Cove...Gatesville, Marlin and maybe some Austin and Waco teams. Hey I made the drive from Georgetown to Killeen everday for 2 years.

[CCDawgs05]

I don't think it really has effected much at Cove...

[supercentex]

I don't think it really has effected much at Cove...


It used to..........

[supercentex]

Here is a link on the Killeen High championship story...

http://www.vvm.com/~kdh/football.html

[lonny23]

You should try looking at a map before you speak about San Antonio schools or any of the other towns for that matter.

Converse Judson, Schertz Clemens, and Randolph are the 3 closest schools to Randolph AFB and you know about their success. A fair amount of parents from Randolph live in the Northeast School District. We had people who had kids at Reagan and they're good at almost every sport not named football.

Cole does very well on Ft. Sam Houston.

Only a few years ago, Jay was 5A state champs in basketball and they're close to Lackland AFB. The majority of the parents who work on Lackland live in the Northside School District and they have some real good teams in various sports. There are a few poorer schools in 4A close to Lackland and they do good in their district.

You don't have a lot of people left on Brooks AFB, so they don't really count.

Down in Corpus, Gregory-Portland is close to Ingleside NAS. I really don't know where all the Navy parents live, but they also have another Naval base in Corpus. Just maybe some of those people in Calallen work for the Navy.

San Angelo Central is not what they used to be, but they make the playoffs and have Goodfellow AFB.

Oh, yeah you forgot about Dyess AFB in Abilene. I remember one team won state last year and another spent the whole year in the Top 5.

Let's go to Wichita Falls. We have Sheppard AFB and Iowa Park wins, but the Wichita Falls schools have had a semifinalist and quarterfinalist the last 2 years in football.

The Army has already been spoken about. The Ft. Hood schools do better than the Ft. Bliss schools in El Paso, but you'll find a relative amount of success for the EP teams in various sports. Hey, what can I say. The Air Force is better!

OK, I'll give you that NAS Kingsville doesn't do much for the sports teams.

Laughlin AFB doesn't help Del Rio out.

Red River and Lone Star don't really count because they are heavily civilian.

Your small bases don't have as much of an effect and a base in a poor town will probably still struggle.

[lonny23]

Hey, Scooter. Tell PA to get a base. It helps and you guys need help! :D

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

Hey, Scooter. Tell PA to get a base. It helps and you guys need help! :D
Yeah. I know. Fort Polk isn't close enough..LOL :D

[CCDawgs05]

It used to..........
Alot of the kids in our program are in military families but they dont go in and out....we only have a few that do....

[jtk1519]

Dyess AFB in Abilene feeds exclusively into Cooper High and a lot of military kids have played a large roll in our success for the last decade or so.

[Texas Hammer]

Dyess AFB in Abilene feeds exclusively into Cooper High and a lot of military kids have played a large roll in our success for the last decade or so.
It's not just the people who live on base, but all the families who live in different parts of the town, too. There are a lot of military families with high school kids who live in middle class housing. Older kids go along with more rank, a higher housing allowance, and ultimately better housing.

[LPMOM]

i think it hurts teams to be located in a military area because you only have most of the kids for a few years. the team roster changes a lot. the medium income for the families is not that much different except for the officers. the majority of poor families in killeen are not military.
supercentex - thanks for the link. it brought back memories as weel as tears. i lost a classmate in the lubys massacre. killeen winning state was a healing balm to us!

[Texas Hammer]

i think it hurts teams to be located in a military area because you only have most of the kids for a few years. the team roster changes a lot. the medium income for the families is not that much different except for the officers. the majority of poor families in killeen are not military.
supercentex - thanks for the link. it brought back memories as weel as tears. i lost a classmate in the lubys massacre. killeen winning state was a healing balm to us!
To me, it seems like the Army towns are a lot different than the Air Force towns. I'll be honest with you, the Air Force towns are a better place to live than the Army towns. The Air Force towns are better at football than the Army towns.

Fort Hood and Fort Bliss are a lot larger than the Air Force bases in Texas, but they don't have a great effect on football.

[Rerun]

Converse = Air Force

Schertz = Air Force

Enough said.

[Texas Hammer]

Converse = Air Force

Schertz = Air Force

Enough said.
My first thought when the topic came up was that there can't be any question when it comes to football. Year-in and year-out across the U.S., the Air Force towns do well above average in football. You don't get a better justification than Judson. The Air Force schools do well at the other sports, but not as well as football. I've always said that the teamwork and hard work you learn in the Air Force can be transferred to the football field.

[dada]

My first thought when the topic came up was that there can't be any question when it comes to football. Year-in and year-out across the U.S., the Air Force towns do well above average in football. You don't get a better justification than Judson. The Air Force schools do well at the other sports, but not as well as football. I've always said that the teamwork and hard work you learn in the Air Force can be transferred to the football field.
Could this be because Air Force personel arent deployed as much as Army personel and the families stay in one area longer......well no....that would be just like any other school then. Or Maybe military kids are easier to coach because they are more disciplined? who knows.

[lonny23]

Could this be because Air Force personel arent deployed as much as Army personel and the families stay in one area longer......well no....that would be just like any other school then. Or Maybe military kids are easier to coach because they are more disciplined? who knows.
I think discipline helps football. We deploy a lot, but not as long as the Army. Time on Station is about the same for the Army and Air Force. Both have people who stay and those who go quickly.

[supercentex]

Military Merry-Go-Round: Many student-athletes in KISD never know where they'll be tomorrow

By Clay Fowler
Killeen Daily Herald

For the last three years Nick Trice has been living roughly 5,300 miles east of Killeen — likely limiting his familiarity with the area.

But obstacles like the Atlantic Ocean didn't prevent the high school junior-to-be from bridging the gap to Central Texas, even from Heidleberg, Germany.

Two years ago at a European football camp Trice befriended Dimitri Jones, the two children of military families extending the network their kind has stretched world-wide. Before his family moved to Belgium, Jones attended middle school in Harker Heights, where he would return, he informed Trice, to join the high school's prolific football program.

Since his encounter with Heights graduate Jones, Trice evolved into a 6-foot-3, 200-pound All-European receiver.

When it came time for Trice to make his sixth major move in 16 years — continuing the journey from Virginia to Korea, North Carolina, New York, Germany, and now the surrounding area of Fort Hood — Harker Heights naturally came to mind.

Trice will begin his education at Harker Heights High School in the fall as one of dozens of transfers to the Killeen Independent School District. He'll also be the next in a series of athletes to mold the transient sporting landscape surrounding Fort Hood.

Cycling in

"Transfers come in cycles," said Harker Heights head football coach Ross Rogers. "You could have a year or two where it might have a huge effect and then there could be four or five years where it doesn't. We've had transfers every year and some of them have been good players and some of them have been just good enough to make the team."

The military movement indigenous to Fort Hood, the largest post in the free world, is unanimously considered the single greatest source of the Killeen area school's fluctuation. KISD has far and away the most transfers of all kinds in its region of 78 school districts, including intradistrict transfers, district move-ins and district move-outs, according to KISD demographer Jeff Heckathorn.

Seventy percent of Shoemaker High School's students have a parent or guardian in the military explaining why it paces KISD in turnover.

Ahmad Parks alone may qualify for the largest ever individual impact on KISD transfer statistics, having tallied a move-out and move-in in two years. Preceding his junior year at Shoemaker in 2004, Parks' father was deployed to Iraq, forcing a move to Kansas where extended family was available to assist Parks' mother with him and his younger brother. Reluctantly, the defensive back left his football coaches and teammates after having likely earned his long-awaited roster spot on the varsity.

But his father's return this year will allow Parks to reunite with his teammates at Shoemaker for his senior year.

"I didn't like the decision to move, but I knew it would help my mom out so I did it," said Parks. "It's hard because you have to meet new people and the coaches don't know what you can do. You have to start the whole process over of waiting your turn."

"But I feel great about coming back to Shoemaker. I get to graduate and finish my athletic career with all the people I originally thought I would."

Transfer terror

Not all transfer stories have happy endings, evidenced by move-outs outnumbering move-ins the past three years by more than 5-to-1.

On the last day of the 2004-05 school year Shoemaker girls basketball coach Shauna Showers was notified that, in addition to losing three starters to graduation, the remainder of her starting lineup and first person off the bench might be transferring.

"I guess transfers hadn't hit me as hard as they did this year," she said. "But it taught me to just wait until the first day of school and see what you've got. At no point in time can we depend on somebody being here the next year."

Showers had more than penciled in rising junior and two-year letterman Nyesha Adams at starting point guard the next two seasons. But two years of grooming on the varsity were rendered obsolete when the Adams family moved off Fort Hood into Harker Heights.

'Have to start over'

KISD allows seniors-to-be the option of remaining at their high school if they move out of its zone. Underclassmen like Adams have to apply to stay and simply hope they're approved. Adams' application was denied.

"You just have to start over," said Showers. "With Nyesha, all the girls have played together for a while so they look to her as their leader, as their point guard. The team had chemistry, knew where each other was going to be. Now we have to recreate that."

The suffering relationships extend beyond the court. Adams grew close with Showers after being promoted to varsity soon after arriving at Shoemaker. Severing ties with her coach was painful.

"She's like my best friend," said Adams. "But now I've got to go and establish myself with another coach."

Like the majority of military children, Adams has been through a transfer before. She moved to Killeen from Detroit in 2001. The resilient Adams even labeled the family's unanimous decision to move across town bittersweet. While recognizing the difficulties of leaving Shoemaker behind, she acknowledged the positive possibilities that lay ahead.

"I was at Fort Stockton High School for five years (1995-2000) and never ran into anything like this," said Showers. "It's just a dynamic of the schools around here."

Lost and found

Shoemaker head football coach Ken Gray's ingenious summer tactic speaks volumes about his level of transfer awareness. "All varsity football players are required to call their position coaches each week to see if their position coaches are all right," said a chuckling Gray. "I tell them if your coach doesn't see you, you call and check on him because he could be sick or something."

Literally tracking his players may seem paranoid, but Gray has lost enough to justify extreme measures. Over 100 in the class of 2004 made the football team as freshmen. Fifteen graduated as Shoemaker football players.

Gray's quarterback, a three-year starter, moved in from Ansbach Germany as a middle schooler, his leading receiver from Georgia as a sophomore. He almost lost his quarterback of the future and starting safety when T.J. Jennings' family moved off post this summer. His most experienced player on a defense returning but three starters just confirmed he isn't leaving Killeen and will graduate a Grey Wolf in two years.

"When they go away for the summer, you pray they come back," said Gray.

Donte Watson was being recruited by North Carolina and Texas among others before the basketball player transferred following his freshman year at Shoemaker. The 6-foot-6 specimen had unlimited potential, according to SHS basketball coach Rick Kirkpatrick.

"I was getting letters from Rick Barnes when (Watson) was a freshman," said Kirkpatrick. "I can't imagine the player he's grown to be. Every year we've had one or two who move out that started as a freshman and you hate losing somebody you've invested time in."

Graduating class

The transfer effect can extend beyond players and coaches to the schools themselves, going so far as to affect the classification of area high schools. Shoemaker and Harker Heights, each hovering around 2,000 students, were elevated to 5A in the 2004 realignment. Heights' football team missed the playoffs for the first time in the 5-year school history upon entering the more competitive 5A.

"Shoemaker and Harker Heights are small 5As, so 75 kids might affect our classification," said Rogers. "There is a huge difference in all areas of UIL (University Interscholastic League) from 4A to 5A, golf, tennis, you name it.

"Back when Killeen and Ellison were big 5A schools, before Shoemaker and Heights were around, 100 kids here or there didn't matter. But my main concern with transfers is it's effecting our status."

'Moving is normal now'

Coaches may lose a few more hairs and their teams a few more games, but uprooted children may feel the transfer challenge most keenly.

"Once you get to one place and everything finally gets normal, then you move again," said Trice. "So, moving is normal to me now. I mean, I know kids who move once every year."

His team having lost the European title game last season, Trice is embracing the challenge of transferring his championship aspirations to Central Texas. He has been working this summer with Heights' 7-on-7 squad, developing some "real nice chemistry" with quarterback Donnie Shorts.

"From what I can tell they've got good players," said Trice. "They just need an extra push and I'm that."

[LPMOM]

supercentex, you beat me to this post. i just got through copying this article so i could post it, and it was allready here! it's true (great minds think alike) :)

[lonny23]

supercentex, you beat me to this post. i just got through copying this article so i could post it, and it was allready here! it's true (great minds think alike) :)
LPMOM, you might be the first person to accuse SuperCentex of having a great mind! :p

[lonny23]

AFPC, Judson needs more recruits, NOW! :D

[mad_fan]

AFPC, Judson needs more recruits, NOW! :D

The best recruits would end up playing for Madison, or so I've read here...and I believe what I read here! :p

[lonny23]

The best recruits would end up playing for Madison, or so I've read here...and I believe what I read here! :p
You don't even need AFPC. All you guys have to do is go steal them out of Judson's district! ;)

[Mhs06]

You cant forget the Air Force Base just outside of Abilene. The name eludes me, however.

[lonny23]

You cant forget the Air Force Base just outside of Abilene. The name eludes me, however.
Dyess. Most of those kids go to Cooper, but they still have plenty at Abilene High.