[Hoot Gibson]

I get tired of hearing all of the complaints about private schools. Parents who send their kids to private schools pay property taxes that support public schools without getting any of the benefits. The bottom line is that parents of private school parents help finance the education of their neighbors' children.

As for recruiting, it is obvious that recruiting in public schools is widespread to anybody who is paying any attention. I am 100 percent in favor of parents being able to send their children to the school of their choice, for whatever reasons they want - but the transfer rules should be eliminated first. Smart coaches who currently cheat under those rules have parents and players do their recruiting. When certain schools fill roster needs with experienced, talented transfers, most of the time it is not a result of a fortunate coincidence.

I have much more respect for sports programs that develop talent from within their district, or in the case of private schools, from within their neighborhood, but programs with poor coaching staffs are not going to be successful at recruiting anyway.

Indiana has some great private schools, including Indianapolis Cathedral, Bishop Chatard, and Roncalli, but I never heard the kind of whining that I hear from some Kentuckians about how unfair it was that their public schools have to compete with private schools and Indiana's public schools hold their own against the private schools in the state.

Kentucky has too few private schools to compete in a single class of their own and that is an absolutely stupid idea that does not make any more sense through repetition. The question people should be asking is why there are so many really bad public school football teams in the state and what can be done to improve those programs.