The FC Fan wrote:I'm never a big fan of these threads because of the way they end up going. Without a doubt, Hartley has an advantage in terms of the personnel they can grab, as does basically every private school, when they are _winning_. Hartley can more or less have students coming from 3/8 of Columbus, Reynoldsburg, Gahanna, Groveport, Pickerington, Canal Winchester, Pataskala, and even Carroll. However, unlike your Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Youngstown privates, the vast majority of the student population's tuition is paid through actual money paid by parents or even trusts as opposed to vouchers and blanket need-based scholarships. BH has very good parental involvement - for many of those kids' parents private education is sought as a priority rather than an option, especially for the legacy Catholic families. The parishes up there only pay part of your tuition if you're a practicing Catholic - and thus there's a rate for Catholic families and non-Catholic families. The rate for Catholic families is after what the parish picks up. Their athletic programs are generally stout through good coaching in their middle and jr high levels, they're a lot more focused on the individuals as a result of a smaller pool of kids to have to coach rather than the masses of a larger public school program.
Now, there's undoubtedly a non-zero number of Hartley students that aren't well-versed in Catholic tradition. Some of their athletes don't come from the feeder schools, but I'd venture to say they have the same amount of non-athlete students that aren't from the Catholic feeder schools. There's a myth that schools such as Hartley try to keep their enrollment low for athletic purposes; well considering how they play larger schools annually I don't see why they would do such a thing, but more importantly it's an old school. In fact, I believe it's actually at its capacity, or near to it (90% or so?).
There will always be a public/private stir whenever these matchups come along down here, and understandably so. Some of these communities are really invested in their kids and raising the bar so their kids can reach their potential, and to see it squashed by an apparent super team from up north? Racine Southern comes to mind as a school that's been burnt consistently by this (baseball). I think there will always be hard feelings when it comes to these games... not necessarily a "haves and the have nots" deal, but a lot of disappointment in the system.
Yes, Hartley does have attendance zones... however like Sapientia mentions Hartley can benefit from exploits in the "system", families in Carroll, Pickerington, Baltimore and Canal can send their kids to Hartley and there's not much the local Catholic school, FC, can do about it. Athletes or not, we'd love to have them at our school and we'd welcome them with open arms. However, it doesn't seem like many of the families or even the priests at those parishes are willing to give Fisher a chance, come by and look at the school or talk to the principal. And as far as I know, Fisher can't even try to "recruit" out of those areas let alone advertise there by Diocese and OHSAA mandate. Parents and kids are interested and willing to take on the school that is more attractive and can offer what's best. Some of it will be inherently sisyphean and unfair if the Diocese keeps letting the kids that live 10-15 minutes (Carroll area), 20ish minutes (Pickerington/Canal) from our school go to the school that looks better on the outside (athletically and aesthetically) that's inside the 270 outerbelt.
Hartley plays by the rules, but it might be close to a fine line they walk if you look at the egregiously large population of kids they can pull from. However, I'll reserve some gripe for that because it's their parents that are willing to drive the farther distance, pay the higher tuition, etc etc LOL which isn't something you might see with your Youngstowns, Clevelands, Daytons etc The other Diocesan schools such as Fisher , Rosecrans, and TCC have to play ball with a much small population of willing families.
Great post. I have googled every thing I can about Hartley school district and NOTHING tends to show that they are a recruiting magnet. Ur comment about their being in a CROWD of atheletes in their school districts and adjacent ones is a big advantage to them, much like the schools in Cincinnati. If we had the same population center, we could do the same. It is what it is.
Good luck Siders!!
................................................................................ I think it says "Location Wheelersburg" over here 
