Class 5A District 12

[The Heartland Archives]

Hi Y'all,
I am new to this board. I can also be located on the forum boards at floridahsfootball.com. As most of you already know, the FHSAA released new districts this past Monday. I would like to discuss with y'all about Class 5A District 12 which includes Booker (Sarasota), DeSoto County (Arcadia), Hardee (Wauchula), Port Charlotte, and Sebring. I was reading some Facebook posts and it appears the folks down in DeSoto (who went 0-10 in 2020) don't like this new district. They say the district is unfair and that they are afraid to play Port Charlotte and Sebring. There's also some talk about them going Independent now. I don't get all this because they've played Port Charlotte the past two years, they've played Hardee every single year since 1921, besides the last reclassification cycle they are usually put in a district with Sarasota Booker, and they played Sebring in a Spring or Kickoff Classic game a couple years ago and used to play them often in the regular season. Also, if they are afraid of playing Port Charlotte why didn't they cancel their game against them last year? I know most of DeSoto's players are young and they have problems with transfers, but I read about the new head coach they hired named Sam Holland and it seems like a great hire. He's been coaching up in Georgia for about the past 7 years, hardly has a losing season, and won a state championship with Chiefland. If Coach Holland can put some leadership on the team and motivate the players to stay at DeSoto, I think they will do much better. Yes it will take some time, but it's doable. I hope DeSoto stay in Class 5A District 12 instead of thinking about going Independent. Them playing teams such as Port Charlotte and Sebring will give their younger players more experience. Also, sometimes getting a new coach is all that is needed to turn a program around. Bartow went 0-10 in 2018. Bartow hired a new coach and he changed everything around. Bartow went 5-5 in 2019 and then 8-1 in 2020. Anyways, I would like to hear y'all thoughts below. Thank you and good night.

 

[gatorman001]

Welcome “The Heartland Archives”, are you using this name on the forum boards at floridahsfootball.com as well? If not, would you care to share the name you’re using on that site? You indicated you’re following this topic on Facebook, and that the Desoto HS community members are advocating playing an independent schedule for the 2021 season. That would have been an excellent opportunity for you to interact/engage directly with Desoto HS folks directly with making your concerns known as well as advocate that the Desoto community should embrace playing its traditional rivals despite the current limitations with the Desoto HS football team………did you? If so what did you learn from them in making your particular concerns known?

 

[The Heartland Archives]

Welcome “The Heartland Archives”, are you using this name on the forum boards at floridahsfootball.com as well? If not, would you care to share the name you’re using on that site? You indicated you’re following this topic on Facebook, and that the Desoto HS community members are advocating playing an independent schedule for the 2021 season. That would have been an excellent opportunity for you to interact/engage directly with Desoto HS folks directly with making your concerns known as well as advocate that the Desoto community should embrace playing its traditional rivals despite the current limitations with the Desoto HS football team………did you? If so what did you learn from them in making your particular concerns known?

Hey, gatorman001. Thank you for your reply. Yes, I'm using this same username on the floridahsfootball.com forum boards as well. I decided to create an account and post this on here, because I know there are some folks from this area who are more active on this board than they are at floridahsfootball.com. Before I continue with my reply, I would like to point out that DeSoto forfeited their 1st round playoff game against Rockledge last season because a lot of the parents pressured their kids not to play due to Rockledge having D1 commits. The Facebook posts I was referring to were made in a Facebook group. This means anyone is able to view these posts, but you can't reply to them unless you request joining the group. I don't think they will take it kind if someone from their archrival requested membership into their Facebook group. A good number of DeSoto fans, most notably a son of one of their assistant coaches, were complaining how unfair the district was and how they don't want to play Port Charlotte and Sebring. However, there's about another half of DeSoto fans who actually like the district, who have confidence in the new head coach, who wants the team to embrace the challenge, and who say the comments by the other fans are disheartening. I was talking to an assistant coach at Port Charlotte who graduated from DeSoto back in the 80s and used to play football for them, and he told me he heard DeSoto folks talking about DeSoto going Independent after seeing this new district. I don't know if he was referring to DeSoto fans, coaches, players, or what. I believe DeSoto is more concerned about playing Port Charlotte and Sebring than they are with Hardee and Booker. Both Port Charlotte and Sebring are known to be good playoff teams almost every year and I think that's why some of the fans dislike the new district. No matter what DeSoto ends up deciding, I don't see them ending their rivalry with Hardee because it's too important to the community. Hardee and DeSoto have been playing each other every single year since 1921 (this year will be the 103rd game) and it was recognized as Florida's oldest continuous high school football rivalry back in the 80s by both Governor Bob Graham and the FHSAA. However, at the same time it's very sad and concerning to see some folks saying what they are saying about the team. Instead of letting the team down, they should instead motivate and encourage the team to do better. Hopefully the new coach will do just that, bring a better attitude to the team, make the players want to play harder, and hopefully he can regain the support of the community. I may be a fan of DeSoto's archrival, but it was still sad to see what happened to them last year and the attitude among some of the folks there. Last season, DeSoto lost many of their players to Charlotte and Port Charlotte and their starting QB moved out of state. Hopefully, this new coach will change the environment there and do something to make the players want to stay instead of transferring. DeSoto has talent, it is just hiding.

 

[Silver King]

Welcome to the board. Desoto gets discussed a lot on here. Unfortunately there were only two guys from the community that chimed in regularly who actually knew what's gong on and I think they became frustrated. They even differed in opinions. Then again we have a couple Hardee guys too, they usually show once the season starts - know the programs and history very well. This board has a good focus on SW / Suncoast and Heartland, like where Us 41 / Hwy 17 Ts at Punta Gorda.

Dogs had a bad season - what you didn't mention was they lost a few key payers to GPA (Due to Covid virtual schooling grades; that's on teachers, Admin, and parents too for that matter). From the sounds of it parents revolted. So it sounds like the parents are running the show, and these days that never turns out good. I mean parents saying they don't want to play in the play-in last season or against teams like Sebring or Port Charlotte? Wow! Damn good thing it isn't Carol City or STA.

An interesting stat in this conversation about the decline of a once competitive program might be to find out how many Desoto players have transferred to Port Charlotte since that Asst from Desoto arrived there. He sure seems to keep his finger on the pulse of that community being the source of that juicy tidbit that they may go independent... I'd hate to see the Bulldogs with their storied history run scared and go independent.

 

[Hwy17]

Going independent would ruin DeSoto's program for years. Desoto hired a coach with a great resume. Parents need to butt out and let him do his job. I saw Desoto's roster last season and there were many 9th and 10th graders on it. Hopefully most of them return. Since this season is going to be a one year alignment and then reclassify and district again next season I think Desoto ought to just schedule some easy out of district competition to get a few wins. That would set them up good for the foreseeable future.

 

[gatorman001]

Too many unknown variables for me to comment one way or the other. I could see seniors not wanting to hang around for what amounts to re-building the program, but for the juniors, Sophomores, and freshmen from a coaches perspective I'd want to sell the rebuilding of the program as well as embracing the challenges of playing the traditional schedule.......my 2 cents!

 

[Hwy17]

Too many unknown variables for me to comment one way or the other. I could see seniors not wanting to hang around for what amounts to re-building the program, but for the juniors, Sophomores, and freshmen from a coaches perspective I'd want to sell the rebuilding of the program as well as embracing the challenges of playing the traditional schedule.......my 2 cents!

There's probably a dozen or so teams in the area that Desoto should be able to compete with right away. Play the district and load up on some of those as non district games!

 

[BillybobJunior]

I don't think Desoto has many Seniors.they would be wise to stay in the District. Both Hardee and Desoto are mirror schools in size with Desoto having a little more students than Hardee. Hardee isn't complaining.

But I will say it is fishy that both Sebring and Pt Charlotte moved down to 5A. They need to check those numbers again and FHSAA should conduct a physical audit because I have a hunch they will find something is not right here. You don't go from a mid level 6a school in numbers to a 5A school like this. Both Sebring and Pt Charlotte were near the midway of 6A in numbers. Any student who is ENROLL must be counted, that includes those doing video classroom.

 

[Silver King]

But I will say it is fishy that both Sebring and Pt Charlotte moved down to 5A. They need to check those numbers again and FHSAA should conduct a physical audit because I have a hunch they will find something is not right here. You don't go from a mid level 6a school in numbers to a 5A school like this. Both Sebring and Pt Charlotte were near the midway of 6A in numbers. Any student who is ENROLL must be counted, that includes those doing video classroom.

No, I think its legit, Charlotte High's population has been capped for three years, so they can't accept non-boundary students. They're doing this because Port Charlotte has been way down and so is Lemon Bay in this county. And of course, not being in a District with Charlotte gives the Pirates a better shot at winning a district .

But back to the point of this post, what did Desoto Fans think about the job the new coach did in a month? North Port beat them, but it sounds like they have a running game, and they scored only 11 points less in this game than they did all of last season's.