Do private and Christian schools have an advantage over public schools like Sulphur? Many people including head football coach Jim Dixon believe that they do.

Oklahoma has plenty of private schools playing in the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activity Association. These schools include class B schools Oklahoma Christian Academy of Edmond, Claremore Christian School, Summit Christian School in Broken Arrow, and Wesleyan Christian in Bartlesville. Other schools include class A Oklahoma Christian School of Edmond, class 2A Lincoln Christian School of Tulsa, class 3A Metro Christian Academy of Tulsa, class 4A Victory Christian High School of Tulsa, 3A Cascia Hall Prep School of Tulsa, 3A Heritage Hall Upper School of Oklahoma City, 4A Harding Prep of Oklahoma City, 5A Bishop Kelley High School of Tulsa, 4A Bishop McGuiness high school of Oklahoma City, 3A Mount St. Mary's High School of Oklahoma City, 3A Seeworth Academy of Oklahoma City to name a few.

The rumors fly of schools recruiting and only accepting the kids they want and turning down kids they don't. Do public schools get to pick and choose the composition of their student body?

Dixon and many other public school coaches aren't against private schools. Many provide great educations. The kids test scores for the most part are higher. Better facilities and technology for students to learn. If I could afford it and lived in the area, I you send my kid to a school like Heritage Hall. However, when it comes to athletics they seem to have an advantage to many.

Let's look at the success of Bishop McGuiness over the recent years. Their baseball team was the 4A state champions. They were second in the past six years. The boys basketball team won it's third basketball state championship in a row and have won the state championship eight times in the sports history. The football team went were back to back state champs the past two seasons as well. The boy's track team was second this past season and the girl's track team was state champions.

Over the past 20 years private schools have collected nine boys basketball state championships, six have been Bishop McGuiness. They have won five boy's state track championships.

In girl's tennis over the past 20 years in 3A, Seminole has one state four times. Private schools have one it the rest, 17 state championships (11 Heritage Hall, 4 Cascia Hall, and the past three years Bishop McGuiness).

In girls tennis all together over the past 20 years private schools have won 28 state championships.

On the boys tennis side of things private schools continued to dominate. In 3A over the past 20 years, 18 state or co-state champions have been by private schools.

Cascia Hall has won it seven years in a row. All together, private schools have won 25 state champions in boy's tennis over the past 20 years. Boy's soccer has had seven state champions since 1992 and girl's soccer has had 13 state champions since 1994, all in private schools.

Nine girl's golf state championships, and 17 boy's golf state champions reside within those same schools. And there are eight baseball state champs since 1994 and 18 state champs in boy's basketball in the past 20 years as well. In volleyball those schools have won 21 state champs over the past 20 years. In football, they have six state championships and in fast-pitch softball they also have six titles over the past 20 years.

They have won 15 boys state cross country championships over the past 20 years as well and 19 girl's cross country state championships in the same time period. Since 1989 they have had 16 state cheerleading championships. That's a total of 206 private school state championships in the past 20 years.

Here is the break down of private schools' state championships over the past 20 years:

Victory Christian has one state championship, Mount St. Mary's three, and Oklahoma Bible Academy in Enid four. Metro Christian has a combined seven over the past 20 years. Sulphur will open the football season September 5 against OCS, a team with combined 19 titles. Heritage Hall has had an impressive 38 titles in that time frame. Cascia Hall is the defending 2A football champ and has 44 state championships since 1988. Bishop Kelly has 46 state championships in the past 20 years. However, no one holds a candle to Bishop McGuiness' 67 state championships since 1988. They are second in the state behind public school power house Jenks in state championships. Jenks has over 120 in the past 20 years.

Another issue that many public school coaches have is the fact that private schools are privately funded and do not have to pass a bond issue to build new facilities.

For instance McGuiness recently had 4.5 million dollars donated to build a new gym. The facility has a state of the art wrestling room, auxiliary gym, volleyball courts, new locker rooms, training rooms, coaches' offices and a complete makeover of the gym itself.

The Casso/Love Fieldhouse at McGuiness got a face lift in 2006 with a state of the art weight room, offices and shower area for the athletes. In the spring of 2008 the stadium was redone as well. The old stadium isn't even recognizable (according to their own web site). All of this was apart of an $18 million campaign started back in 2002 to renovate the school.

Attendance to some of these schools costs in the neighborhood of $12,000. If you're kid is in high school it would cost them $13,495.00 this year alone to attend Heritage Hall. You can also buy a parking spot for your child close to the front door. It will only cost in the $20,000 range at Heritage Hall. When OCS comes to town just think that school year for those kids will cost them $6,715. However, all these schools offer some type of financial aid or scholarship to certain kids.

Lincoln Christian will be in 2A this year. This is their first appearance in the OSSAA. They are already favored by many to compete for the 2A state championship. They have by far the best facilities of any 2A school in the state.

Schools that play the Lincoln Christian Bulldogs will have the privilege of playing on Lincoln's synthetic turf field. 'A turf field costs a minimum of $225,000 dollars. It is no wonder why a student would want to attend or why a parent would want their child to attend these schools. The problem public school coaches have isn't that they have better equipment or facilities. It's the fact that since they are apart of the OSSAA and are not held to the same standard that the public schools are. A private school can also control its enrollment. They can say we will have this many kids in school and when they reach that number they can close enrollment. Public schools have to accept the kids who move in.

So how does Dixon along with many of the other coaches in the state feel?

Dixon is trying to persuade the OSSAA to make changes and is gaining supporters in his effort.

"The fact is they aren't playing under the same rules," he said this week. "I'm doing this for the kids, not for me. We have been blessed here. We have won state championships and done about everything you can do here, but we have kids coming up that haven't done those things. They need the same opportunities that those kids had. The last time we won the state championship we defeated Heritage Hall in the semifinals and they had no school boundaries on getting kids and that isn't fair.

"Any kid that is going to public school isn't getting the same opportunities that the kids that are going to private schools are. The private schools have been dominating the spring sports for years now. Now they are starting to dominate winter sports and have a leg in on fall sports like football. The fact that a kid wants to go to a private school he can just go, their are no rules.

"If they live in Sulphur and want to go to Davis they have to sit out a year or move into the Davis school district. How in the world and under who's vision is that fair? No way is that fair. If you live around Oklahoma City you can go to McGuiness or Heritage Hall without sitting out or moving and that isn't fair. In Texas I believe that their are just two private schools that play with the public schools. Why? Because if a private schools plays with the public schools they have to play 5A no matter what their size is. In Tennessee, Arkansas, and I believe Missouri and Kansas the private schools have to count their kids on enrollment as 1.5 while the public school counts them as 1. Here in Oklahoma, it's like they have free transfer to private schools, they can do what ever they want. To me it's real simple. The OSSAA can do what we want and count them as 1.5 or we can split them up. We can start a new association of just public schools.

"Their are no requirements on who the private schools have to accept as a student. If you live in a public school district that school is required to take that kid. However, that public schools can't accept a kid coming in to play athletics. The private schools are just the opposite. If you want to play football basketball, baseball, or any other sport it doesn't matter who you are a public school has to take you. The private school can pick and choose their athletes. It's not the same standards as simple as it can be to me. We have to make it a level playing field because it's not right now."

So what does a private school coach have to say about all this?

Heritage Hall head football coach Andy Bogert weighed in on the issue.

"Well, I think that a lot of the things that they are saying just go on in private schools are going on in public schools," he said. "Today parents are involved in high school sports more than ever. Sometimes parents move their kids because of playing time issues. Maybe it's because they perceive a team as having a chance of going to the playoffs and winning a championship. We hear this a lot. When the private school isn't very good, no one complains. However, when you start getting to be high profile in a sport then you start hearing complaints.

"Here is an example, our basketball team has made state one time in the schools history. You will never hear of someone coming to Heritage Hall to play basketball, or even baseball. I think the more you're in the news and are successful the easier it is to take a shot at you. There is also a misconception by a lot of people. If a kid lives in the Edmond school district and wants to transfer to Heritage Hall he has to move into the Oklahoma City schools district or sit out a year. If a kid wants to transfer from Norman or Moore he has to move or sit out. We have obviously had kids move in and have to sit out. That's a misconception. We can't have anyone moving in from anywhere. They have to move into our district. The OSSAA designates our district which is the Oklahoma City school district. We have kids go back and forth. We have had kids try to transfer to Edmond and have to sit out or move into the Edmond school district."

About the issue of private schools being able to control enrollment, he said, "with the economics today I don't see us turning a lot of people away. If we move up we move up. I'd say that we have moved up our enrollment about 50 students over the last couple of years. We have a big freshman class incoming. Our biggest problem like other schools is with increased enrollment comes the hiring of more teachers. I don't know that we cap our classes. For economic reasons is what causes our size to be what it is. This isn't an inexpensive school. Do we control it? If you talked to our head master they would say that if we could get more kids then we would take them. I believe economics are why we stay the size we are not that we turn kids away."

Bogert went on to talk about his school and other private schools' ability to fundraise and that many private schools have better facilities.

"A lot of it has to do with a public school district and a town getting behind a bond issue," he said. "Edmond has had a lot of bond issues and their facilities are excellent. Many public schools in Oklahoma City are now getting better facilities and getting the equipment they need."

When asked about a 2A school like Lincoln Christian having a turf field this is what coach Bogert had to say. "Most of the time its from one benefactor. I know that Cascia Hall's coach went out and raised the money himself for them to have a turf field which they got last year. He had a fundraiser and raised several hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's not any easy job either."

Dixon and other public school coaches have tried to get the OSSAA to get the ball rolling to do what Oklahoma's neighboring states have done. Either count the private school kids as 1.5 or make them play up in classification.

So does private school have an advantage over the public schools? It may just come down to which circle you are running in.