I know this is the C4 board and they’re independent. If you thought their program looked bad before, they really look bad now. Why are parents still sending their kids there?
Life Christian
- Thread starter BoKnowsSports
- Start date
Some parents might be believing something about a school like this that is not true. I've interviewed administrators at religion based schools that have a focus on football and basketball and I came to the conclusion parents might just want to consider letting their kids stay in familiar surroundings and friends.
I know I'm yelling into the void but if Life Christian is really in shambles, that just goes to show after 4/5 years Coach Scott was unable to ever develop an actual program there. It will be the same at Huguenot.
I’m thinking the opposite. He made that program look good. They did a lot with a very little bit and they were decent. LCA looks more or less like Bishop Sycamore.
Y’all is Crazy! Coach Scott is best coach in 804 maybe VA! He has 5 state championships and 2 nattys! Over 100 D1 Power 5 players at LCA! He will win state in first year at Huguenot!
Nahhh fam. I’m a big Scott fan but calling him the best coach in the 804 is wild. I definitely respect him and I feel like he’ll eventually be in the conversation. I don’t mind you talking your talk. I wanna see Huguenot win now.
Truth be told, this is some troll. I'd bet money they aren't even associated with Huguenot. Trying to hard
Dripping who is yo team? Y’all don’t want no smoke from the falcons dis year. Troll? I’m sure u look more like a troll den me! Come see us tomorrow at Forrest Hill!
You’re playing Amelia! I didn’t even know Amelia still had a team. Finish five and five, and you should be happy with that.
just maybe the familiar surrounding and friends is what drove the parents to send their son to Life in the first place.
You make a great point. But. Homesickness is real. Unfamiliar surroundings are not always the best first step to avoiding negative influences. Homesickness is underestimated. Generally speaking, high school football and basketball will need to have a come-to-Jesus meeting. The monetization of the two sports happened so quickly and so long ago that no one has stopped the money train to ask questions.
Life Christian Academy has supposedly scheduled a game against Bishop Sycamore on 11/9. There won't be any game of course because Bishop Sycamore doesn't exist, but what does LCA gain by participating in this publicity stunt?
I've seen Huguenot this year! Manchester showed you guys the exit door quick fast and in a hurry! You lost 42-20 (the only truly decent team on your schedule), you squeaked past a mediocre Bird team 12-9, and LOST to a 3-5 Cosby team last week! LOL! Yeah, you guys are terrific, state championship is a gimme for you guys.... keep dreaming, it might happen in a few years!
We are seeing more and more of these types of teams pop up and a dangerous precedent is being set. Remember the upstream effects that schools playing these types of schools have on the current power ratings system.
I've thought about typing a long-form post about these types of schools in a moment (more on that definition in a moment as I'm sure there are some who are triggered because I used the term, "these types" instead of the actual substance of the post).
But for the upstream effects, we have this independent or whatever you call it (there are many more in Virginia but I was going to use them as my initial example) who end up playing VISAA schools and maybe the random VHSL schools who are desperate to add games for whatever reason (as if trying to get a game with any of the other 300 VHSL members is tough). These points flow upstream. Should the VHSL still allow points and therefore rankings of VHSL programs to be negatively affected by teams such as Life Christian? We see how close some of the VHSL power points can be from year-to-year. Should teams potentially lose out on playoff berths because some other school in their region had some type of indirect relationship through scheduling with essentially a parks and recreation/travel team/AAU wannabe school? I think not. If high school kids want to play for an AAU football team (if they even offer 15-18 year olds that), then fine, you can't play VISAA or VHSL schools and you can play other AAU teams.
So this leaves me to the original question I was going to ask in a longer post. Should VHSL and even VISAA schools stop scheduling these "Dad" teams? These are basically made-up teams and schools that are disguised on the front-end as "elite". And I use the Dad team in this context:
Back in the mid-1990s, AAU Baseball came to the Fredericksburg-area (primarily Spotsylvania County). The reason? The Babe Ruth program had gotten a bit stagnant and establishing an AAU program was a way to separate the elite players from the kids that played for "Dad" (i.e. the kids who would play All-Stars who were the last kids on the bench). The Virginia Players were the team and they were awesome. They reach several National Championship Rounds and placed very high in their first couple of years in existence. Then, the "Dads" came around and wanted to make their own AAU teams because their kids weren't good enough to play on the main team. Eventually, the talent pool would get diluted through politics and relationships that the Players were no longer as dominant as they once were. Basically the premise was...if my kid don't play, I will create my own team. And we have seen this with random teams that pop up on scoreboards that I have never heard of.
My point is that VHSL membership schools should step up and say something about the current fact that places like Life Christian, the Virginia (whatever they are called...they just have a nickname and I don't even know if they are a school), or the Smith Mountain Lake whatever-you-call-thems have an effect on VHSL ratings if you are within that realm of connectivity to them (think Six Degrees of Separation/Kevin Bacon).
Until we go to districts based on a combination of enrollment size and geography within the same class with your district finish determining your playoff seeding, what I've mentioned will be another unnecessary quirk in the system.
I've thought about typing a long-form post about these types of schools in a moment (more on that definition in a moment as I'm sure there are some who are triggered because I used the term, "these types" instead of the actual substance of the post).
But for the upstream effects, we have this independent or whatever you call it (there are many more in Virginia but I was going to use them as my initial example) who end up playing VISAA schools and maybe the random VHSL schools who are desperate to add games for whatever reason (as if trying to get a game with any of the other 300 VHSL members is tough). These points flow upstream. Should the VHSL still allow points and therefore rankings of VHSL programs to be negatively affected by teams such as Life Christian? We see how close some of the VHSL power points can be from year-to-year. Should teams potentially lose out on playoff berths because some other school in their region had some type of indirect relationship through scheduling with essentially a parks and recreation/travel team/AAU wannabe school? I think not. If high school kids want to play for an AAU football team (if they even offer 15-18 year olds that), then fine, you can't play VISAA or VHSL schools and you can play other AAU teams.
So this leaves me to the original question I was going to ask in a longer post. Should VHSL and even VISAA schools stop scheduling these "Dad" teams? These are basically made-up teams and schools that are disguised on the front-end as "elite". And I use the Dad team in this context:
Back in the mid-1990s, AAU Baseball came to the Fredericksburg-area (primarily Spotsylvania County). The reason? The Babe Ruth program had gotten a bit stagnant and establishing an AAU program was a way to separate the elite players from the kids that played for "Dad" (i.e. the kids who would play All-Stars who were the last kids on the bench). The Virginia Players were the team and they were awesome. They reach several National Championship Rounds and placed very high in their first couple of years in existence. Then, the "Dads" came around and wanted to make their own AAU teams because their kids weren't good enough to play on the main team. Eventually, the talent pool would get diluted through politics and relationships that the Players were no longer as dominant as they once were. Basically the premise was...if my kid don't play, I will create my own team. And we have seen this with random teams that pop up on scoreboards that I have never heard of.
My point is that VHSL membership schools should step up and say something about the current fact that places like Life Christian, the Virginia (whatever they are called...they just have a nickname and I don't even know if they are a school), or the Smith Mountain Lake whatever-you-call-thems have an effect on VHSL ratings if you are within that realm of connectivity to them (think Six Degrees of Separation/Kevin Bacon).
Until we go to districts based on a combination of enrollment size and geography within the same class with your district finish determining your playoff seeding, what I've mentioned will be another unnecessary quirk in the system.
LCA has to do something for attention. Getting their brains beat in every week and finally beat a team that plays home school programs. Seen a few games on YouTube and the coaching is rec league level. Like flag level
It's not Life's issue and there is no publicity stunt. Max Preps has a list of psuedo teams they list when the "varsity opponent" is not covered by Maxpreps. Look at the schedule and click on the icon for the team. It says varsity opponent and it explains it quite well.
The "coach" and the "matchmaker" from BS High have been saying for a year now that they are coming back this season. Lately they are saying that 11/9 is the date for their grand return to the gridiron and the rumor is the team that thinks they actually have a game on that date, or is willing to go along with the scam, is Life Christian Academy. The matchmaker has scheduled these two teams twice before but they've never actually played. The BS coach is just looking to extend his 15 minutes of fame a little longer. He doesn't have a team.
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Man that documentary was something to watch 😂
Are you talking about Smith Mountain Lake Christian Academy? That is an actual school.
I spoke to a kid who went to Life Christian. Said they cheated on all of their work cause it was online and only went there because of Scott. We knew that. I love Scott for putting those kids in positions to see the world outside of Richmond but it sucks that they were sat up for failure by that deplorable learning environment. Shut that place down for good!
There's an article in the Richmond Times about this game. It's being played at VA State. Snake oil salesman.
And I don't think anyone wants to ask questions. I think most turn a blind eye but you are spot on sir.
What do you mean by a come-to-Jesus meeting? You mean with quasi-schools like this or what?
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More on tbese sham "schools" and their upcoming game.
Bishop Sycamore is scheduled to play a football game next month
Thought Bishop Sycamore was done? Apparently not as they are scheduled to play in a game next month against a similar opponent
awfulannouncing.com
Correct, but Smith Mountain Lake Christian uses "homeschool" kids on their football and other athletic teams. For that reason and others, they aren't VISAA-eligible.
Think of it like this: What are your personal standards of right and wrong? If you had a kid playing football who would you trust with your kid? Would you check the background of the organization the same way the backgrounds of individuals are checked? What could an organization have ever done and you would still send your kid to that organization for the sake of football? Who would you have working relationships with after finding out they have committed the worst things? When I first saw that high school football and basketball had been turned into a businesses I mentioned it to someone I know. He said that I was crazy. Today he says I was right. When I was still reporting I asked an administrator a question about the football players. The reason is because the players were not the people I saw in the stands. So I asked would these kids be going to the school if they did not play football. He said NO! Emphatically. If the money train was out of control before today's NIL potential, it is running at light speed and no one wants to ask any questions. All of the worst things that could have ever be done have already happened and there does not seem to be any adults in the room. So I will ask you. How low do you accept the bar going before you say, "Hey! Wait a minute!" Some people need this thing spelled out for them. Others that understand do not. When the right questions are asked the respondent always says to go talk to someone else. We are currently living in the I Do Not Care Era. And not only do people not care, they are more concerned with what they might get over what has and is taking place and who is at the helm. I stepped away from promoting high school sports.
If I read things correctly on another blog, I just saw that Life forfeited to IMG Academy this week. Any idea why?
I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but “I told you so“ about Life Christian.
They were formally Evangel Christian Academy. Evangel, the Church, is actually a group that broke away from another local Church under very questionable circumstances. I’ve seen a pattern of questionable moves by that organization for 20 years.
This is why I was adamant that them starting a football program was not based on the desire to give special kids a special chance. It was about the unchecked ego of a handful of members of the Church.
Like Bo said, they sacrificed the kids to be able to beat their own chest. Those kids are now sentenced to a life of mediocracy, at best. Let me tell you, as a business man that typically hires young people within a few years of their high school graduation, kids have to compete for employment, even more than they compete for playing time. Even in the best of circumstances, most kids come out of high school, and even with an Associates Degree, are not able to meet the needs of most employers. What Life Christian has done, and continues to do, is a travesty. 99% of those kids that they sold this pie in the sky promise to, will never make a dime as a professional football player, and damn few will get a free college education. But guess what, when the promises they were made go up in a puff of dust, every one of those kids has got to go find a way to make a living. And all they have is a sham education.
They were formally Evangel Christian Academy. Evangel, the Church, is actually a group that broke away from another local Church under very questionable circumstances. I’ve seen a pattern of questionable moves by that organization for 20 years.
This is why I was adamant that them starting a football program was not based on the desire to give special kids a special chance. It was about the unchecked ego of a handful of members of the Church.
Like Bo said, they sacrificed the kids to be able to beat their own chest. Those kids are now sentenced to a life of mediocracy, at best. Let me tell you, as a business man that typically hires young people within a few years of their high school graduation, kids have to compete for employment, even more than they compete for playing time. Even in the best of circumstances, most kids come out of high school, and even with an Associates Degree, are not able to meet the needs of most employers. What Life Christian has done, and continues to do, is a travesty. 99% of those kids that they sold this pie in the sky promise to, will never make a dime as a professional football player, and damn few will get a free college education. But guess what, when the promises they were made go up in a puff of dust, every one of those kids has got to go find a way to make a living. And all they have is a sham education.
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Can't say why but this season has had a lot forfeits and abbreviated schedules among these small independent teams everywhere. I don't see how you can sell a program when you can't even play 10 games and no playoffs. Life Christian will probably finish 1-7 and their involvement in the Bishop Sycamore scam will end in embarrassment one way or another. I don't see how it's sustainable for any of these teams.
They must be a wealthy organization, because it takes a lot of money to take a football team out of state to play. Money may be one reason Life forfeited to IMG. I can't believe a church would financially support such a high cost no return football program. There is no gate money or any other revenue available.
Like a lot of Churches, they generate a substantial portion of their income from Day Care, Pre-K, and K.
The fox guards the hen house. The ones with the power are the same ones that spend these resources on the football program.
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