Washington state high school reclassification

I had been hearing for awhile about how the WIAA wanted to reclassify the schools in each division.

They want 66 schools in 4A, 3A and 2A; 65 schools in 1A; and 62 schools in 2B and 1B. Currently, there are 78 in 4A, 68 in 3A, 55 in 2A, 63 in 1A, 66 in 2B and 59 in 1B.

Saw this over on the Tacoma News Tribune:

How Washington’s high schools will be classified for the 2010-11 school year is becoming more clear. WIAA executive director Mike Colbrese said Saturday that all 13 Metro League schools will compete in Class 3A. Eleven of the league’s schools will opt up to 3A.

That’s significant for a handful of South Sound schools and every school that’s near the cut-off for 3A and 2A. According to the preliminary enrollment numbers released by the WIAA on Nov. 30, current 3A schools Franklin Pierce, Sumner and Bonney Lake, plus 4A schools Decatur and Wilson stand a good chance of being reclassified into 2A. However, Franklin Pierce, Decatur and Wilson are among the 59 schools that have until Dec. 15 to decide if they want to compete in the classification their enrollment places them in, or opt up to a larger classification. Bonney Lake and Sumner have said they will compete where they are slotted, which looks like it will be 2A.

On Jan. 4, the WIAA will release the list of the new classifications, but schools will have one last opportunity to opt up. But if a school has already opted up, it can’t decide to go back down to the classification its enrollment originally placed it in.

The Bonney Lake and Sumner moves, along with possibly Franklin Pierce would be big news for the SPSL 3A that could lose three teams. My old high school White River is in that league. And it seems the division they are in changes all the time. When I was in school we bounced leagues all four years I was in school.

Video Bites: Cute Animal Photos

The December 4th edition of the JustSON Video Bites. That's right, bite sized videos!

Submit cute animal photos and outdoor photos to: justsouthofnorth@gmail.com

Tacoma New Tribune: How you can offer support:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/tacoma/story/979837.html

Our hearts and prayers go out to those families.

JustSON Friday Night Lights Edition

Well I barely made the deadline for the 7 o' clock kickoffs because I had to work late. But I did. Check the time stamp below.

As usual, we here at JustSON will take on the Tacoma News Tribune with their picks of local high school football games.

Here's the standings so far this season:

Tacoma News Tribune: 8-7 JustSON: 7-8

Very close. Here's this weeks picks:

TNT:

South Kitsap over Bellarmine Prep

Peninsula over Bonney Lake

Rogers over Decatur

Bethel over Graham-Kapowsin

Wilson over Lincoln

Washington over Eatonville

Yelm over Olympic

White River over Clover Park

Enumclaw over Auburn Mountainview

Kentridge over Tahoma


JustSON:

South Kitsap over Bellarmine Prep

Peninsula over Bonney Lake

Rogers over Decatur

Graham-Kapowsin over Bethel

Wilson over Lincoln

Eatonville over Washington

Yelm over Olympic

White River over Clover Park

Enumclaw over Auburn Mountainview

Kentridge over Tahoma


The picks are locked down. Now it's time for some football!

A great article from the TNT

I read this article today in the Tacoma News Tribune. If you have a minute check it out, it is well worth the read.

Tacoma man's dream may finally see life afloat

Don't feed the animals

Yogi might have loved to steal some picnic baskets, but in the end, Ranger Smith was right. "Don't feed the wildlife."

According to Jeff Mayor over at the Tacoma News Tribune visitors to Paradise on Mount Rainier are doing just that.

Mayor says that Mount Rainier National Park officials are becoming increasingly concerned that Cascade foxes that live around Paradise are becoming "too habituated to human food." That means that like Yogi they are beginning to want it more than their normal food.

Now Yogi might have always gotten away, while making the viewers laugh, but wild animals eating human food is not a laughing matter. Just last year a wild black bear became a nuisance around Paradise because he was being fed by park visitors. Rangers were forced to scare the bear away from the area and deeper into the park.

And now the foxes are becoming the problem. One fox had to be killed last year after it was hit by a car trying to get human food.

So please people. For the sake of the animals, please don't feed them. No matter how hard they beg.

Also, when you're in a wild area with bear, foxes or even raccoons, you should always store your food in a hard shell container while camping. Do everyone a favor and don't feed the wildlife.

Here comes the bride - Tacoma, Washington

Sorry folks, but instead of your weekly dose of sporting news from around the Pacific Northwest I'm going to tell you about my night.

Sit back down.

Tonight I took one for the team. I did what everyman has to do once in his life. I went to a wedding expo. And I'm not even engaged. Yeah, here's how I got there.

So a few weeks ago my dad was reading the Tacoma News Tribune (it has way better reporting and stories than the Seattle Times. If you're a fan of the Times sorry. Just calling it how I see it) Anyway, on the back of the business section he came across an ad that said, "Win a $30,000 wedding at the Tacoma Museum of Glass."

Like I stated earlier, I'm not engaged. But naturally I looked at the rules. They were simple. Write a 500 word essay on how the two of you met and why you should be the ones to get married at the museum of glass. Or something like that. I figured, heck someday I'll get married. And why not get a free wedding at that time?

The catch was you had to go to their open house where the winner would be given their prize. Since my girlfriend is in Nebraska, and not wanting to be THAT guy who showed up alone, I dragged my sister along. She was a great sport. Yet, by the fourth person who called her my bride, she pulled a "Hello my name is" sticker out of her purse and wrote in "the sister" and we weren't asked again. Seriously though, if it weren't for her I would have died.

Walking into the place was like walking into a Star Trek festival. Only replace the Spocks with bridezillas and replace the nerds with grooms-to-be being dragged around by their earlobes.

I was handed a bunch of business cards, talked to a British guy who drove a Rolls Royce for Thoroughbred Classics (a Rolls Royce Chauffeur Service). He even came complete with a tiny red bowtie. Sadly his name was not Jeeves though. I ate free cake, drank free wine, looked at free pictures and listened to free music.

Needless to say I got bored quickly. That's when we decided to wander around the Tacoma Museum of Glass. And I must say, I do not understand art. Let alone extremely breakable art. One security guard actually asked me to please put my hands in my pockets because I think he just thought I looked like someone who might try to touch something that was worth way more than the $30,000 wedding contest I had entered. I asked him if I did win, if I could trade it for one of the strange orange orb blobs that had green blobs on the outside of it. He looked at me and laughed. Then again asked me to put my hands in my pockets.

Leaving the area of breakables we headed into the studio where you could watch the artists mold glass into mainly useless blobs. The one they were working on right then was long, round and then bulged out to a mushroom shaped top at the end.

The head artist called it the "Straights of Berlin." I thought it resembled a certain male organ. He said it would be displayed later in the year. I asked if he was inspired by something he had seen in Spencer's Gifts. He didn't catch it.

After a much longer time than was needed (and two bride fights over whos ring was better) it was finally the moment to find out who would win the wedding.

The MC for the night pulled out a slip and read the name. It wasn't mine.

I had written a humorous essay. One that I knew was good. I didn't figure I would win, but mine was certainly better than the one that won. No joke. Here is what his was.

"We were two city kids who grew up in Tacoma. We loved the city of Tacoma and went to college in Tacoma. Now we are trying to pay back our student debt from college in Tacoma. Our wedding has been placed on hold. The Tacoma Museum of Glass is the heart of the city of Tacoma. To get married at the Tacoma Museum of Glass would be amazing. It would be a chance for a couple from Tacoma to show their relatives why they love Tacoma so much. To get married at the Tacoma Museum of Glass would allow us to start our marriage in Tacoma. Tacoma is where we want to live for the rest of our lives. We love Tacoma."

Yeah, the whole essay was about 300 words long, 48 of those were the word Tacoma. And the final one was kissass. But I guess it worked for them. They get a $30,000 wedding at the Tacoma Museum of Glass in the heart of Tacoma.

I got free cake and a highfive from a British dude in a bowtie. But then again who wants to get married in front of something that looks like the Apollo 11 landing unit anyway? (see picture above. Yeah that's the museum)

Jake Heaps: Washington's shining star

Jake Heaps is quickly becoming one of the nation's top high school recruits. This season, his junior year, he led the Skyline Spartans to another state championship. I went to a few of his games, and the kid is impressive.

Here is an article that Todd Milles of the Tacoma News Tribune wrote about Heaps. It appeared in today's paper.

The 12-year-old was itching for a workout. His parents phoned quarterbacks guru Greg Barton.

Barton runs a football academy out of Beaverton, Ore., that holds camps throughout the Northwest. When Barton took that call one Sunday afternoon, he recommended that the anxious family attend one of the group workouts the next week.

The suggestion wasn’t good enough.

So, the Heaps family – with Jake, a sixth grader at the time – drove from Sammamish to Beaverton, and beat Barton to the field where the parties were scheduled to meet for a private evaluation.

“The parents didn’t want the meeting. Jake wanted it,” Barton recalled about that 2004 one-on-one session. “He’s the type of kid who’s a really nice person, but when he gets something in his head, he goes for it.”

Fast-forward to today. Heaps, who just finished his junior season at Skyline High School, where he’s led the Spartans to two state championships (one 3A, one 4A), yearns to be one of the top recruits in the country.

“It’s never been my family pushing me. It’s all been me. I’m self-driven, and I can stop all this in a heartbeat and my parents would be supportive,” Heaps said. “This is something I’ve wanted to do from an early age, to get better no matter what the cost is ... and let hard work take you far. I take pride in myself and in my game, and I’ve put my time and effort into the sport, and given up a lot of things to be at this level. It won’t stop any time soon.”

With roughly 20 NCAA Division I scholarship offers in hand, from some of the best programs in the country, Heaps headlines the junior class – players who are Northwest Nuggets candidates for next year.

“He’s got the Jimmy Clausen approach going,” said SuperPrep recruiting editor and founder Allen Wallace, referring to the 2006 Hall Trophy winner as the nation’s No. 1 player out of Oaks Christian of Thousand Oaks, Calif. Clausen is now the starting quarterback at Notre Dame.

“His name is being bandied about as the top recruit, the underclassmen with all the offers from major schools, without them even evaluating him.”

Heaps is a rising star, and has one more season to build on a career of already eye-popping numbers – 5,991 passing yards, 69 touchdown passes and 11 interceptions. Skyline is 28-0 in Heaps’ two seasons as the starter.

His intangibles may be just as impressive. His vision gives him an unusual ability to escape trouble. His leadership qualities brought Steve Spurrier from South Carolina for a look, and earned him early scholarship offers from virtually every Pacific-10 Conference program outside of Southern California.

“He’s not 6-foot-4. He’s not going to run a 4.6 in the 40 (yard dash),” said Mat Taylor, the Skyline coach. “But you know what, he is going to win football games.”

Heaps’ recruiting plan has been in motion for years. He’s preparing to fulfill his high school graduation requirements early so he can enroll at a school in time for spring ball.

“We had heard about quarterbacks going early, and it was an idea that if it was something we needed to do, it’s something we can do,” Heaps said. “I didn’t think it would happen, but talking to coaches, they’re chomping at the bit to get me in (early).

“It sucks you don’t get to finish out your senior year with your class. ... But on the football side of things, if you go, the sky is the limit.”

The state of Washington never had the No. 1 quarterback recruit in the nation before Heaps came along. Wallace said a case could be made that he could be the top overall player, too. The quarterback expects to make a decision on a college before his senior season starts in September.

“Jonathan Stewart (Timberline High product) and other top players ... I’ve wanted to be in their shoes since I was little,” Heaps said. “It would be selfish and arrogant of me to sit back and take this experience lightly.”

He says he's going to decide before the start of his senior year. And then, to top it off, he's trying to graduate high school by December so he can enroll at the university of his choice and be ready for spring ball with his new team. Sounds to me like he is trying to get prepared for his college career. And not just as a backup or redshirt freshman. He'll be vying for the starting job with that college.

Oh, and Heaps is 28-0 as a starter. All the guy does is win football games. Sounds like a guy UW better start recruiting really hard. Especially since he's in their own back yard.

But then again, I did find the photo posted above on the University of Florida Web site in an article talking about Heaps.