Does anyone know anything about St. Francis in Baltimore. I just read an article that said, they don't have a home field or a practice field. Conditioning they run the neighborhood. It says they finished #4 in the country last year and this year most all teams in the MIAA, said they will forfeit their game against St. Francis rather than play them. Last year they beat Gilman 50-0. Very interesting
St. Frances Baltimore
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Biff Poggi moved from Gilman to St Frances after a year as a consultant at Michigan I believe. Poggi pays for players basically from all over the country to come in. He houses them and everything. Under Armour funded their gym and maybe the field they use, not sure about football though. MIAA teams all dropped them more or less as a middle finger to the league and SFA for not stepping in to stop what they felt was going way beyond the normal recruiting practices of the privates. They also don't have some of the same academic requirements and snotty alums running the place and a lot of the more prestigopre privates look down on them for that too. SFA has done some shady things with recruiting and Poggi has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way over the years trying to build national championship programs at Gilman and SFA
I'm sure they finished #1 in the Maryland State Poll last year. Does anyone remember? They were undefeated and had a huge scoring differential
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SFA shares the same practice field as Dunbar. The school itself, from what I am told is rundown looking from the outside. A person would not expect that a school exists there just by looking at it. I do not know where they actually play their games.
WVU’s head coach’s son was attending SFA prior to the start of the the season last year but transferred out probably because he was not going to get the starting job. He went back to Morgantown High after making inquiry to Martinsburg. He transferred to University for his senior year this year.
just by reading the article it sounds like those MIAA Teams are correct by not playing them and also it sounds like the School shouldn't even be open at all.
Seems crazy to me that SFA's Coach think it's Racism
Seems crazy to me that SFA's Coach think it's Racism
St. Frances was getting beat by those other teams for years but now the tables have turned and they have one of the top teams in the country:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.maxpreps.com/m/article_amp.aspx?articleid=f1fb321e-9bc0-4fcf-90b3-1e557bd0f6f7
Now the other Catholic schools don't want to play them. The question is why? When Gilman was dominating a few years ago it wasn't this type of backlash, but now the majority African-American school is winning and they don't like it. They made claims that SFA was cheating and it was investigated they didn't find anything. Now they are saying there are safety concerns but the only player to suffer a serious injury was one of SFA's players. So if racism isn't a factor why are the other schools behaving this way?
ESPN is doing a feature on SFA tomorrow:
https://es.pn/2vclYXb
https://www.google.com/amp/www.maxpreps.com/m/article_amp.aspx?articleid=f1fb321e-9bc0-4fcf-90b3-1e557bd0f6f7
Now the other Catholic schools don't want to play them. The question is why? When Gilman was dominating a few years ago it wasn't this type of backlash, but now the majority African-American school is winning and they don't like it. They made claims that SFA was cheating and it was investigated they didn't find anything. Now they are saying there are safety concerns but the only player to suffer a serious injury was one of SFA's players. So if racism isn't a factor why are the other schools behaving this way?
ESPN is doing a feature on SFA tomorrow:
https://es.pn/2vclYXb
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Was watching ESPN this morning and the feature E60 story tomorrow morning will be on st Francis. From the previews it goes into show how bad the area they play at really is and how no one will play them.
the article says they have gotten players from all over the Country, it also says they take 11th and 12th grade transfers and if they are beating teams like Gilman 50-0 why should those schools play them? why don't they schedule Dematha or go on the road and play the best teams in the Country. The Coach seems to have money as it said he kept the school from closing up and it's sad that he is paying for some of the players to live in apartments. The School supposedly looks bad and there's crime all over the place, why would anyone send their kids there? Again I'm still not sure how these Teams not wanting to play them is Racist
didn't know it was a black school but that sounds horrible, I didn't know there was black and white High Schools these days. What I'm still trying to figure out is how they have 180 students in a private school and 90 play football, the building is supposedly bad, it's in a bad neighborhood where people get shot all the time and just by reading the article about the guy doing this and that it sounds to me like a football school that recruits from all over to fuel the guy's ego. They were #4 in The Country I'm sure they can travel and find teams to play.
I'm excited to see Bishop Walsh making changes to the basketball program as well but they will face the same thing, there will not be any local teams on their schedule, if you want to bring players in and put them in dorm type situations you just have to deal with what comes along with it and that will be that all the teams they play will be 2-3 hour trips.
Reporters for the Baltimore Sun have said what the others teams are doing is racist. These are journalists that cover the league every day and more well versed on the topic than you or I. In 2015 Gilman beat SFA 50-0 and nobody got upset about it. A few years ago McDonogh went undefeated and nobody said anything. SFA broke no MIAA rules. There's no explanation, that's why racism keeps coming up as a rationale
You're going from bad to worse with your stupid statements. The SFA has been open since 1828 educating kids in a "bad neighborhood" why should they shut the entire school down because of the football team? They didn't even have a football team until 2008. If you didn't know there are many catholic schools in "bad neighborhoods" Gonzaga (DC) is in a "bad neighborhood." People get shot near Gonzaga all the time. Do you want to shut down all the schools in "bad neighborhoods"?
Also, you didn't know there are some schools that are all black and some schools that are all white?
From the website:
Saint Frances School for Colored Girls was opened by Mother Mary Lange and the Oblate Sisters of Providence in 1828. Gradually the name changed to Saint Frances Academy by mid century. The school moved to its present location on East Chase Street in 1871. It became coeducational in the mid 1970s. It is the oldest continuously operating, predominantly African-American Catholic High School in the United States. We've been serving our community for over 185 years!
https://www.sfacademy.org/about-us/history-tradition/historic-narrative
Saint Frances School for Colored Girls was opened by Mother Mary Lange and the Oblate Sisters of Providence in 1828. Gradually the name changed to Saint Frances Academy by mid century. The school moved to its present location on East Chase Street in 1871. It became coeducational in the mid 1970s. It is the oldest continuously operating, predominantly African-American Catholic High School in the United States. We've been serving our community for over 185 years!
https://www.sfacademy.org/about-us/history-tradition/historic-narrative
One of the best top ranked hs football schools in the country is in Baltimore which is awesome especially the area the school is in the heritage, etc. There is no reason to continue with all the other bs side conversations and posts
Let's face it the bottom line is that the other MIAA schools didn't like getting their butt kicked last year and probably for the next few years and they decided it was better to take their ball and go home. SFA has been looked down at for years since it is predominantly black and lower income,lower academic standards than other Catholic schools down there. Almost every private school has been questioned about recruiting tactics over the years and it's not like the other MIAA schools don't have some talent either, it's just a case of not wanting to get beat.
I just read an email letter from the AD/HC of Mervo written to the MIAA dated 05/08/18 that was posted on the new Baltimore board about the underhanded and controversial tactics of St. Frances.
There is not any reason that I see not to believe this as the Franklin starting QB apparently jumped ship to St. Frances just 4 days before the season after practicing all summer with Franklin and playing in two scrimmages, according to posters.
If what the Mervo AD/HC says is true this is pretty damn dirty and totally dismisses the race-baiters stating that the MIAA action against St. Frances was about race and not dirty-scheming tactics. The racism claim has become just a red-herring about anything in an attempt to promote oneself as a victim, when in fact St. Frances appears to be a perpetrator of underhanded and dirty tactics. I know recruiting probably happens all of the time but I have not heard of any teams, public or private, that have taken these alleged measures or to this level.
The Mervo AD/HC gives details about St. Frances’ tactics, including an unnamed person coming into Mervo, refusing to give his name, asking for transcripts of the players that St. Frances was specifically recruiting, players showing him texts from St. Frances including coaches promising him “SEC” and “NFL” money and St. Frances scolding Mervo admin that if they care about their kids they would encourage them to leave Mervo and go to St. Frances, actually coming to the school to pick up players and take them to practices and actually practicing with St. Frances while still enrolled at Mervo.
The confrontation towards St. Frances has nothing to do with race but with exactly what T. Helmick stated previously in another thread and I share his sentiment about what some schools are doing with high school football.
There is not any reason that I see not to believe this as the Franklin starting QB apparently jumped ship to St. Frances just 4 days before the season after practicing all summer with Franklin and playing in two scrimmages, according to posters.
If what the Mervo AD/HC says is true this is pretty damn dirty and totally dismisses the race-baiters stating that the MIAA action against St. Frances was about race and not dirty-scheming tactics. The racism claim has become just a red-herring about anything in an attempt to promote oneself as a victim, when in fact St. Frances appears to be a perpetrator of underhanded and dirty tactics. I know recruiting probably happens all of the time but I have not heard of any teams, public or private, that have taken these alleged measures or to this level.
The Mervo AD/HC gives details about St. Frances’ tactics, including an unnamed person coming into Mervo, refusing to give his name, asking for transcripts of the players that St. Frances was specifically recruiting, players showing him texts from St. Frances including coaches promising him “SEC” and “NFL” money and St. Frances scolding Mervo admin that if they care about their kids they would encourage them to leave Mervo and go to St. Frances, actually coming to the school to pick up players and take them to practices and actually practicing with St. Frances while still enrolled at Mervo.
The confrontation towards St. Frances has nothing to do with race but with exactly what T. Helmick stated previously in another thread and I share his sentiment about what some schools are doing with high school football.
I knew they practiced at Dunbar but I did not know they played their games at Dunbar. I would hope Baltimore City is paid to cover costs of the field use, especially if there are lights being used during the game.
The more you read; the worse it gets: should have remained an unpeeled onion.
that's strange that public school money is used for a Private School to pay for them to play football, When you choose to go to a Private School you choose to pay for that stuff on your own.
