[DarthVader]

Interesting that ppl believe Catholic  / private schools have some sort of athletic advantage. The pool of students is very limited as not every family has the ability to pay the tuition and even fewer have the desire. In addition, the culture is just different than that of the public school system (attire, hair length, religion, acceptable behaviour). The success rate of students that come to Catholic from the public school system solely because of athletics is very low: many leave after their freshmen year.

You said it, it's culture. The ones that are able to pay the tuition and get their students there, are doing it because they want what's best for their students academically, socially, and athletically. These schools generally get high quality kids from high population areas. It definitely has it's advantages. Of course it has it's challenges that are specific to that type of school environment, but it's hard to argue that model isn't more successful on a broad scale over time.