Minneapolis City League Demise

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Moses87 said:
I don't buy that about Roosevelt. There's still plenty all-american kids growing up around Lake Nokomis, Lake Hiawatha and between the lakes and the River Road over to 38th, the cut-off for the South District. I just think those kids are discouraged by the fall off in the last 20 years. When I grew up, we had Roosevelt Football teams that went to the State Tourney in the 70's and 80's and there was a tradition and passion for it...Its really sad for me to see they dropped football because only 20 kids came out.
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I doubt any of those kids go to Roosevelt, I would bet that everyone of them goes to South/Holy Angles/Minnehaha, all the Washburn kids that could get in used to go to South, that is starting to change a bit.
 

jovs said:
I doubt any of those kids go to Roosevelt, I would bet that everyone of them goes to South/Holy Angles/Minnehaha, all the Washburn kids that could get in used to go to South, that is starting to change a bit.
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I tend to agree. I have a house in the Nokomis area and my family has been in the neighborhood since '45. When I moved in about 10yrs ago it was an OLD neighborhood with few young families. It's quickly turning over though and becoming a popular area for young families. Whether they choose a City school or not remains to be seen, but there's hope.

All that said I grew up in SW Mpls & attended a private school so I was part of the problem. I plan to make up for it though. :)
 

A strong Minneapollis City Conference would definately help the Gophers in all sports. There's thousands of kids simply not interested in playing sports anymore simply because the tradition is lost.
 

pointman99 said:
Continuity. It starts with the youth sports and park programs. How do you build solid, consistent feeder programs up to and including 9th grade? I only know Mpls hockey and anecdotal stories about football.

Academics are there, but the perception is that they're not. This needs to change too.
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With all due respect, I think the major issue is open enrollment and the ability of kids to leave the MPS to go to suburban schools such as Hopkins, Cooper, Minnetonka, Wayzata, etc...the youth programs have tons of talented players but they end up in high schools 20 miles west of Minneapolis. Although I will agree that there is a need for a strong feeder program and the ability to create regional identities within the city. Having kids from North Minneapolis go all over the city destroys the sense of pride in schools.
 

My biggest concern is that 10's of thousands of kids in the inner city are simply not growing up watching their local HS teams compete and therefore it breeds disillusionment for sports in general. The Minneapolis City Conference has produced how many Gophers in the last 10 years? Who knows how many naturally talented kids never play a game because its no longer cool. That's pretty sad and one of the reasons the Gophers don't have a better feeder program. Minneapolis could easily be a hotbed for talent but the talent isn't being cultivated. Maybe the University's athletic department should make a long-term investment and help the park programs market and get more kids playing sports again...even the Somali's!
 


Moses87 said:
I grew up in the 70's and 80's when Minneapolis Basketball with North (Carpenter, El Amin, Bannister) and Henry(McKenzie) leading the way were dominent. Even schools like Roosevelt(John Thomas, Joe Woods), Washburn and South (Omar Lewis) had decent talent too...Lately, I haven't heard much coming out of city league. It's all Hopkins, Minnetonka, Robinsdale Cooper, DeLaSalle.

What is the status of the Minneapolis City Conference and are those suburb schools recruiting kids from Minneapolis Junior High teams? Are magnet programs taking kids out of the city? Can anybody enlighten me?
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you want to know the real reason regardless of whether some liberal tool thinks it is racist to say? it is all because of b.s. open enrollment that came into being in minnesota schools during the 1990's. so instead of kids playing for their neighborhood schools and high schools like all of us used to, we/they are now stupidly bused all over town and essentially recruited by predominantly nonathletic suburban schools to come be their savior athletes. not because those schools give a rat's arse about their educational attainment.
 

pointman99 said:
Continuity. It starts with the youth sports and park programs. How do you build solid, consistent feeder programs up to and including 9th grade? I only know Mpls hockey and anecdotal stories about football.

Academics are there, but the perception is that they're not. This needs to change too.
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Two problems.

1) Minneapolis has a really high transient population in many of its sections. Youth programs struggle with this.

2) The cost of playing a sport has become too expensive for many people on small budgets. What used to be covered by schools is now requiring a fee from the parents. That's money that a number of parents don't have in their budget. In that regard, blame facilities costs and the Pawlenty 60/40 payment plan to schools for funding. The lack of funding is leaving kids playing their sports on a video game instead of in real life.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
With all due respect, I think the major issue is open enrollment and the ability of kids to leave the MPS to go to suburban schools such as Hopkins, Cooper, Minnetonka, Wayzata, etc...the youth programs have tons of talented players but they end up in high schools 20 miles west of Minneapolis. Although I will agree that there is a need for a strong feeder program and the ability to create regional identities within the city. Having kids from North Minneapolis go all over the city destroys the sense of pride in schools.
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bingo!
 

Shoot man, demise of the City Conference started way before open enrollment came along. You people from the Roosevelt, Washburn, Southwest, West (I know, West is gone) act like it just started taking place in the 80's and 90's. Dang, it started in the 60's. People felt it earlier at North, South, and Central and to a lesser extent Henry, Marshall and Edison. Vocational, well. Voc was Voc. You people just experienced it later. I say this without knowing any answers on how to reverse it. I just know it started earlier than what some posters think.
 



Went to South in late 80s early 90s and enjoy remembering when the gyms were packed and a South vs Roosevelt/North/Henry game was an event you didn't miss. South had Steve Seawright, Russel Wilson, Jason Daisy, and Jason Sims and others had John Thomas, Bebop Walker, Robert Mestas, Prentice Perkins, Khalid El Amin etc. I remember a South home game vs Roosevelt where Daisy went up for a break away slam and was fouled hard from behind (jumped/attacked really) and then the benches cleared and the fans rushed the court too. It was crazy and took like 20 min to get the game going again. Ahh...good times. I think all of the teams mentioned above went to state during that time and I know Washburn, North and Henry went shortly there after as we'll. Wish it was still like this. Nothing like a packed gym on a Friday night during February in the Mpls. city conference. Fight Fight Tigers!!!
 

The top athletes (black & white) flee the city & get into elite athletic programs. What that leaves is the non athletes. At that point it becomes all about Advanced Placement (AP) & International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. They're a pragmatic way of living in the city, attending public schools & still find a way to get a good education. See Southwest, South, Henry, Washburn, et al. It's a guilt-free form of academic segregation where certain parents can say "Oh we love the diversity of the inner-city, Johnny's school is 40% Black, 30% Mexican, 20% Asian & 10% White". Then, once their kids test into the elite programs & the minorities don't, they basically never interact with them again.

* Southwest has become the elite school in the city thanks to their 90210-esque zip code & IB program. Basically anyone who's white & middle/upper middle class w/ plans to go to college has been finding a way to go there for the past 15 years. It's become a de facto magnet school of sorts.

* South still gets the top academic kids because their advanced program (elite education) pumps out Ivy League type grads every year.

* Henry is on the uptick thanks to their AP/IB programs that the mostly white families in the Victory neighborhood demanded in order to send their kids to Henry.

* Washburn has really turned it around, also in large part thanks to their IB Program. The school itself is located in one of the wealthiest areas of Mpls & many alumni, now with children of their own made a decision to make it better & demanded the IB program. If school's were stocks I'd be buying as much Washburn as I could.

* North is dead due to open enrollment & recruiting of black athletes. Zero school pride, zero neighborhood pride, highly transient student body. It's over.

* Edison may have taken the biggest dip of all the city schools. It's the worst academically & I don't know any white friends from NE Mpls that send their kids there. They all find a way to attend St Anthony or De La Salle.

* That leaves Roosevelt....Roosevelt is trying to sort things out but it's further away. The Nokomis neighborhood itself has really been rejuvenated by young families moving into the area as older folks age out. Nokomis has become the poor man's Lake Harriet. There's also Lake Hiawatha, Minnehaha Falls, bike paths, etc. The area has several major parks/rec centers (Keewaydin Park, Lake Hiawatha Park, Nokomis Park, Hiawatha School Park, Morris Park) all of whom have active parents & decent systems. The neighborhood also just got a new library, a Light Rail line, Keewaydin Middle School is receiving a massive expansion & is going to become a neighborhood rec center with indoor basketball courts, etc. for local teenagers & Lake Hiawatha Park just got a brand new splash pas & tennis courts. Also within the past 5 years several decent bars & restaurants have opened for the parents. I was involved with PTA/Site Leadership Council etc at the local grade school (after closing several of them down, they've all had to be re-opened due to exploding enrollment btw) & I know a lot of involved parents in the neighborhood. We talk about our kids paths & we always get to Roosevelt & say...."Well it's a few years away still", leaving the door open to attending Roosevelt. The principal has engaged the local parents and asked point blank "What do I have to do to convince you to send your kids to your neighborhood school?". The answer (of course) is an AP or IB program so the kids don't have to sit in classrooms that are 25:1 Somali or Mexican to White. The school has complied launching an IB program last year & a few of the kids I know there are starting to go there, when they wouldn't have 5 years ago. Baby steps.

Back to the original topic....sports is over in Mpls.
 

Don't forget the best neighborhood news...Skylane Bowl is converting to Town Hall Lanes! I digress...

Not sure I get how the race card/allowing kids to excel is driving kids away.
 

boston.gopher said:
Went to South in late 80s early 90s and enjoy remembering when the gyms were packed and a South vs Roosevelt/North/Henry game was an event you didn't miss. South had Steve Seawright, Russel Wilson, Jason Daisy, and Jason Sims and others had John Thomas, Bebop Walker, Robert Mestas, Prentice Perkins, Khalid El Amin etc. I remember a South home game vs Roosevelt where Daisy went up for a break away slam and was fouled hard from behind (jumped/attacked really) and then the benches cleared and the fans rushed the court too. It was crazy and took like 20 min to get the game going again. Ahh...good times. I think all of the teams mentioned above went to state during that time and I know Washburn, North and Henry went shortly there after as we'll. Wish it was still like this. Nothing like a packed gym on a Friday night during February in the Mpls. city conference. Fight Fight Tigers!!!
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great post! i too hope and wish that city conference sports (football, basketball, baseball, hockey) can make some kind of come back some day in the future. perhaps with more and more of the gen X, gen Y and millenials moving into urban neighborhoods and understandably shunning the abyss that is american suburbia they just might. fingers crossed. suburbs and ex-urbs for the most part leech off of and were built on the backs and hard, tough work of most of their urban cores.......minneapolis and st. paul suburbs included. mcmansion life is a fallacy.
 



I blame the demise on the large growth of the gay community. If they do have kids, their children will likely be musicians and all play the same instrument... (sarcasm alert) :p
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Shoot man, demise of the City Conference started way before open enrollment came along. You people from the Roosevelt, Washburn, Southwest, West (I know, West is gone) act like it just started taking place in the 80's and 90's. Dang, it started in the 60's. People felt it earlier at North, South, and Central and to a lesser extent Henry, Marshall and Edison. Vocational, well. Voc was Voc. You people just experienced it later. I say this without knowing any answers on how to reverse it. I just know it started earlier than what some posters think.
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What you are talking about is demographics, number of kids, size of school, age of the neighborhood, this has always been the case, by the late 60's early 70's the first ring suburbs had the largest enrollment, Richfield, Edina, Robbinsdale were some of the largest high schools and had some of the best sports teams. By the late 90's and the 21st century it has shifted to Eden Prarie, Wayzata, Lakeville, etc..
 

When I was in HS in the mid 80's, Bloomington Jefferson and Kennedy domniated hockey along with traditional powers Edina, Hill Murray and perhaps Burnsville...The Minneapolis schools like Washburn, Roosevelt(Larsen, Ramsey), Southwest(Chorske) and even Edison(Dzdzick, Birmingham) were still producing Div 1 and NHL talent.

I left the Twin Cities in 88 but from what I've heard Roosevelt merged with South for a few years in Hockey and then totally dropped it...Despite being the only school in the city to have it's own rink, Henry's program never took off...Who still has teams? Washburn and Southwest? Meanwhile, I've heard that the Bloomington schools are kinda going the same way Minneapolis schools went. Somehow it doesn't seem like the north burbs like Robinsdale or Brooklyn Park have been hit like Bloomington...
 

jovs said:
What you are talking about is demographics, number of kids, size of school, age of the neighborhood, this has always been the case, by the late 60's early 70's the first ring suburbs had the largest enrollment, Richfield, Edina, Robbinsdale were some of the largest high schools and had some of the best sports teams. By the late 90's and the 21st century it has shifted to Eden Prarie, Wayzata, Lakeville, etc..
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Good analysis. Also, don't sleep on the price of energy. People fled the urban cores nationwide because cheap energy allowed them to do so (hey, hey! I can commute from Elk River 5 days a week!). They will return as expensive energy forces them to. I think the trend people are mentioning of young white families resettling closer to the city may appear at first to be academic-related, but often the economics of the situation are a key underpinning.
 

Minneapolis is a co-op hockey program now, Cooper and Armstrong merged at the youth level, only a matter of time before they merge for high school. Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, Fridley and Columbia Heights are all one program known as North Metro
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
The top athletes (black & white) flee the city & get into elite athletic programs. What that leaves is the non athletes. At that point it becomes all about Advanced Placement (AP) & International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. They're a pragmatic way of living in the city, attending public schools & still find a way to get a good education. See Southwest, South, Henry, Washburn, et al. It's a guilt-free form of academic segregation where certain parents can say "Oh we love the diversity of the inner-city, Johnny's school is 40% Black, 30% Mexican, 20% Asian & 10% White". Then, once their kids test into the elite programs & the minorities don't, they basically never interact with them again.

* Southwest has become the elite school in the city thanks to their 90210-esque zip code & IB program. Basically anyone who's white & middle/upper middle class w/ plans to go to college has been finding a way to go there for the past 15 years. It's become a de facto magnet school of sorts.

* South still gets the top academic kids because their advanced program (elite education) pumps out Ivy League type grads every year.

* Henry is on the uptick thanks to their AP/IB programs that the mostly white families in the Victory neighborhood demanded in order to send their kids to Henry.

* Washburn has really turned it around, also in large part thanks to their IB Program. The school itself is located in one of the wealthiest areas of Mpls & many alumni, now with children of their own made a decision to make it better & demanded the IB program. If school's were stocks I'd be buying as much Washburn as I could.

* North is dead due to open enrollment & recruiting of black athletes. Zero school pride, zero neighborhood pride, highly transient student body. It's over.

* Edison may have taken the biggest dip of all the city schools. It's the worst academically & I don't know any white friends from NE Mpls that send their kids there. They all find a way to attend St Anthony or De La Salle.

* That leaves Roosevelt....Roosevelt is trying to sort things out but it's further away. The Nokomis neighborhood itself has really been rejuvenated by young families moving into the area as older folks age out. Nokomis has become the poor man's Lake Harriet. There's also Lake Hiawatha, Minnehaha Falls, bike paths, etc. The area has several major parks/rec centers (Keewaydin Park, Lake Hiawatha Park, Nokomis Park, Hiawatha School Park, Morris Park) all of whom have active parents & decent systems. The neighborhood also just got a new library, a Light Rail line, Keewaydin Middle School is receiving a massive expansion & is going to become a neighborhood rec center with indoor basketball courts, etc. for local teenagers & Lake Hiawatha Park just got a brand new splash pas & tennis courts. Also within the past 5 years several decent bars & restaurants have opened for the parents. I was involved with PTA/Site Leadership Council etc at the local grade school (after closing several of them down, they've all had to be re-opened due to exploding enrollment btw) & I know a lot of involved parents in the neighborhood. We talk about our kids paths & we always get to Roosevelt & say...."Well it's a few years away still", leaving the door open to attending Roosevelt. The principal has engaged the local parents and asked point blank "What do I have to do to convince you to send your kids to your neighborhood school?". The answer (of course) is an AP or IB program so the kids don't have to sit in classrooms that are 25:1 Somali or Mexican to White. The school has complied launching an IB program last year & a few of the kids I know there are starting to go there, when they wouldn't have 5 years ago. Baby steps.

Back to the original topic....sports is over in Mpls.
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Great Post, Thanks! I live in the Longfellow area and I love it. We used to be a Roosevelt Neighborhood but with the changing of Zones three years ago we were Switched to South as our home school. There is the pepole on my block that believes that this decesion was based on race and money.
 

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