I see Gainesville is a city of 35,000, how can they qualify to play 3A ball?

[Old Cardinal]

I was looking an Gainesville has a population twice what any other 3A town I could find at 35,000. How can they make the 899 enrollment cut to play 3A sports?

[Rabbit'93]

Someone brought this up earlier and I believe it was said that the majority of Gville are senior citizens and older folks. I have a buddy that lives in Lake Kiowa (Next to Gville) and he said the area is a place where elders go to retire. Plus there is another school in GISD I think they are 1A. I'll try and find the thread for you.

[Rabbit'93]

I stand corrected. Just another school nearby. Here's the link to the thread: Thread (http://bbs.3adownlow.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=014067)

Hope this helps.

[eagle.eyes]

OC, I agree. I've been to Canyon, Lake Buchanon(Burnet), @ Jasper (Lakes Toledo Bend and Sam Rayburn), who all have HUGE retirement residents. Add all 3 together and they don't come close to the population of Gainesville. I'm no mathmatician but I do have a keen nose!

[GETBACKCOACH]

First of all,
Let's get the numbers correct. Gainesville has a population of 14,566 (probably less now). Over 70% of population is older than 65. So let's do the math....70% of 15,000 is 10,500. Subtract 10,500 from 14,566 and the Final Answer is 4,066. So Gainesville is not as some would like to look at it. But however you look at it, they have turned in 821 students to the UIL. They will be 3A next two years.

[eagle.eyes]

Ouch Coach.....I own a calculator too. BH is on the verge of 4A with a population of 1100! Viagra must be rampant on the Hill!

[Keith7]

Old Cardinal:
I was looking an Gainesville has a population twice what any other 3A town I could find at 35,000. How can they make the 899 enrollment cut to play 3A sports?I wish we were that big, maybe we could get a movie theatre then

[KTJ]

Gainesville's population is between 16-17,000. The population signs are wrong. And no, it's not shrinking.

But as I (and probably keith) explained before, Gainesville was a big place for the Baby Boomers. They're all old now; hence, the high population. But there is a lot of growth going on, granted it's not near as rapid as a Frisco, Little Elm, or North Denton. Nonetheless, it's growth.

GETBACKCOACH--how do you know the number Gainesville turned in? If it is 821, that shows the high school population is steadily growing when comparing this with the past 2 realignments.

[Old Cardinal]

I really don't know what to say-I did a little research and the last time Gainesville was recorded in the low 14,000s was in the Rand McNally Road Atlas of 1999(at exactly 14,256). Now those figures were derived from 1998 data! That side of the DWF is being touted as the fastest growing area of the USA....They must farm out students over to the other school just enough to keep themselves in 3A, or something. I heard one school in Texas, took their special ed. children over an enrolled them in a cooperative program with another school district so that they could make a classification cut....I do agree that there can be a difference between a school district and a town or city population, but in every case that I know of the I. S. District is the larger.

[Buffalo]

Drove through there yesterday it is a lot bigger then any 3 A town I have seen. Aslo heard Abil. Wylie was going to go 4A because of the large number they turned in. Any truth?

[Owen B]

I can hardly believe some of the implications being made here.

Even if Gainesville wanted to "farm out" 100 or more students, they couldn't do it. Does anyone really think all those students would transfer to another district, just to keep Gainesville in 3A? If they did, wouldn't somebody notice?

Likewise, even if Gainesville's administrators were dishonest enough to try to misreport their enrollment by over 10%, wouldn't somebody notice?

Also, even if UIL, TEA, and others were that blind, and Gainesville's administrators were that dishonest, they just wouldn't do it. They'd be causing themselves all sorts of financial problems, and inviting all sorts of legal problems.

It's this simple. Gainesville's demographics are unusual, as others have stated. A glance at census data, broken down by age groups, confirms that.

[Keith7]

When Gainesville was 4A they did fine we beat the #3 in state team in football, and we went 2 deep in basketball before getting beat by South Oak Cliff.. so Gainesville is not scared of 4A.. we just have a bunch of old people..

Nobody likes winners, Just like Celina "Recruited people" after they won championships.. Someone always expects there to be a cheating reason for teams to become good, and maybe that is the case in many situations, but not in this one.. If u wanna find where our population comes from, then call one of our six nursing homes here in town

[BrahmaMom]

One correction: Baby Boomers are NOT "old people"--we are just more experienced in life!

[wildstangs]

Buffalo:
Drove through there yesterday it is a lot bigger then any 3 A town I have seen. Aslo heard Abil. Wylie was going to go 4A because of the large number they turned in. Any truth?Abilene Wylie is always rumored to be moving up. I doubt they will this time. Maybe one of our Wylie posters will fill us in on what numbers they turned in. With the great team they have coming back it wouldnt hurt my feelings to see them go up! :)

[Buffalo]

I do not think anyone has said Gainsville has done anything wrong with the numbers they had a great team and this should not take away from that. I just stated I drove through the town and it look large they have a Chilli's home depo & a super walmart. That does not look lke your typical 3A team. They are also on the interstate and there are several small towns around there that rely on them.

I have heard that Wylie will be up and be with Brownwood sounds good huh Wildstang.

[KTJ]

Oh, yeah--I forgot to mention this earlier.

When you said 35,000, it dawned on me on the drive back to Austin today that 35K is the population of Cooke County. That's where the mistake was made.