Dave Cooks out as coach at Marquette High

[IWB]

Where did MUHS pull their students from "back in the day?" Milwaukee? Inner suburbs like Tosa? How does it differ now?

Well - first off, Marquette is not hurting for students. They are at the same enrollment they always have been. With sports, I think there is a big difference from 'back in the day' until now.

"Back in the day", Catholic grade schools really were the only ones with sports. Basketball, football... in public schools you didn't have sports until you got to junior high. I knew a few non-catholic guys in grade school that actually took CCD classes and transferred into Catholic Schools just so they could play sports. Back then, the Catholic Schools were the feeder programs.

Today, all of the public high schools have feeder programs and they start earlier than the Catholic schools ever did. As Eddie pointed out, many of these kids start playing for a team early on and are with that team for 6 years before ever thinking about what high school to go to. That includes Catholic school kids too. There are many that I know that both parents went to Catholic grade schools and high schools but the kid has been playing for "XYZ Program" and wants to continue.....

Another issue is cost. People are not as willing to dedicate the costs for Catholic schools as they used to be, part of it is because of these feeder programs. There is a feeder baseball program where I live. They are switching from one league to another, in order to play more games. Now they will be playing like 74 games this summer. 74! These are 4th graders! So, the cost to play is like $300. Not a deal breaker. But how many out of town tournaments do they have? These families are getting hotel rooms every other weekend. Why? So little Junior can get a jump on high school tryouts in 5 years? These costs add up in a big way. So, when you are spending $10k per year on junior's baseball & soccer career, no way you can throw down more for school.

Final issue is that "back in the day", Catholic families had 5-6-8 kids per family. Now a typical Catholic family has 2 kids, 4 if a big family. The numbers just aren't there.

One last rant on select crap....

I have a friend who always bought into this stuff on the soccer side. Always told me "If you want to play in high school you have to start with select teams this early"... "you have to enter these tournaments"... "You have to scale down what sports you play and play 'your sport' year round!" Well, their older daughter is now a junior in high school. Raised all sorts of money so her travel team could go to tournaments in California and then Vegas. Great, right? After thousand and thousands and thousands of dollars, their daughter returned from the Vegas tournament and announced that she no longer wanted to play.

Yep - Burnt out at the age of 16, sick of the sport she played 365 days per year for the last 6 years. They were shocked, I wasn't surprised one bit.

[TheSultan]

Thanks for the explanation IWB. As someone who isn't Catholic, and who attended public schools his entire life before going to MU, I just don't have the background. I will admit when I first got to MU and met someone from Brookfield who went to MUHS, I was flabbergasted why someone would go that far just for high school!

[IWB]

Thanks for the explanation IWB. As someone who isn't Catholic, and who attended public schools his entire life before going to MU, I just don't have the background. I will admit when I first got to MU and met someone from Brookfield who went to MUHS, I was flabbergasted why someone would go that far just for high school!

Brookfield is far? When I went to MUHS I had classmates from West Bend, Germantown, Pewaukee, Oconomowoc - hell, Jere Pandl was from Oostburg. We also had guys that lived across the street. I know many people view MUHS as a "rich kid school", but that is far from being accurate. There are as many people from blue-collar families as there are "rich kids". Don't get me wrong, there are families that are wealthy, but that school is probably the best example of a melting pot that I can think of, many different religious, ethnic and financial backgrounds.

[CaribouJim]

What is the tuition at MUHS nowadays?

edit: never mind - saw the post on the $13,000. That is a contributing factor to the shrinking numbers of Catholic schools . I can't help but think that if the Catholic Church wasn't having to settle (and rightfully so) with those that were abused by priests that there would be more Catholic schools around and for a lot loss tuition.

I graduated from a Catholic High School out east in '76 and the tuition was $600 per family!!! All ten of us kids went there and we had as many as 4 there at once or $125/kid. Yikes!! As a result, the vast majority of kids were middle class. Now, like private colleges, it seems like you are either super rich or super poor at a lot of the Catholic High Schools.

I think our Catholic grade school was for free. Changing times.

I probably went a bit too off topic - sorry about that.

[IWB]

I believe it is $10k

[Nukem2]

wanted to play.

Yep - Burnt out at the age of 16, sick of the sport she played 365 days per year for the last 6 years. They were shocked, I wasn't surprised one bit.

Have a nephew who did the whole travel routine for volleyball. Did the same thing. Came back from a tourney down south and announced he was burnt out and quit just before his senior season. Doing fine now in MU dental school.

[TheSultan]

Brookfield is far? When I went to MUHS I had classmates from West Bend, Germantown, Pewaukee, Oconomowoc - hell, Jere Pandl was from Oostburg. We also had guys that lived across the street. I know many people view MUHS as a "rich kid school", but that is far from being accurate. There are as many people from blue-collar families as there are "rich kids". Don't get me wrong, there are families that are wealthy, but that school is probably the best example of a melting pot that I can think of, many different religious, ethnic and financial backgrounds.

Compared to the commute to high school I had, Brookfield to MUHS seemed REALLY long.

[eddiedswang]

Add in Books -- $ 600 at least

Add in Lunch Plan -- $ 500 at least

Add in participation in sports fees -- $ 50 per sport

Add in the $$$$$ they hit you up for -- priceless

Figure around $ 13,000 a year......

[2013UnleashTheBeast]

Caribou, you forgot to take inflation into account. $125 in your HS days is roughly equivalent to $20 Gs nowadays I'd venture to guess.

[mufansince72]

I believe it is $10k

I don't know how in this day and age anyone can justify 10K for high school. Go to a decent public school and save the 40 grand for college.