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In Reply to: Putting it in perspective posted by destewart on April 24, 2008 at 22:26:49:
I think you need to get a permit to carry those statistics of yours around, des! You're downright dangerous when it comes to turning a blind eye to context! vbg
Okay, now for some real perspective...
1) Sam Ostarello was a sophomore when she won the SD state high school high jump championship, not a senior. If you go back through the IHSAA records for girls, you will find that the highest any sophomore (or younger) has ever won the IHSAA state championship was at 5-10" - and only once in all those 30+ years. Leaving out all the juniors and seniors, here is a list of the heights (and how many times each occurred) at which a sophomore (or younger) won the IHSAA state championship:
5-10: 1
5-09: 1
5-08: 2
5-07: 4
5-06: 2
5-05: 1
As you can see, the majority of times an IHSAA state high school championship was won by a sophomore (or younger), the height was 5-6 to 5-8. So, in that light, Ostarello's height seems a little more impressive.
2) Ostarello won the SD state high school DIVISION A high jump championship. In South Dakota, there are two divisions, AA & A. Division A is for small schools. If you look around the country, you will see that track and field records for bigger schools are usually better than those for smaller schools. But even with that as a comparison, in 2006, junior (as opposed to sophomore!) Emily Breslin of Indianapolis Cathedral (just a wee bit bigger than Stanley County HS! vbg) won the IHSAA state high school championship at only 5'6" - only an inch higher than Ostarello's jump.
3) Indiana has a state population of over 6.3 million residents. South Dakota has a population of less than 800,000! Gee, des, ya think that state HS track records in Indiana might be a tad bit better with nearly 8 times as many athletes competing each year??? But hey, I know your response is going to be how you were merely comparing Ostarello to the best athletic records in Indiana as a means to see how she measures up. Okay, fair enough. Which brings us to point #4...
4) Ostarello won the SD state high jump championship in only her first year of track! Having run track (and been a state championship medalist), I can tell you the high jump is as much technique as it is raw athleticism. It takes awhile for kids to learn the proper technique of jumping. And one season is not much of a measuring stick. Not when she was learning the ropes. Presuming Stanley County is big enough to have someone on staff who actually knows how to teach proper high jump technique, let's see how Sam does this year and in her senior year before you start waving your stats around under the guise of perspective!
The bottom line is that Ostarello can play above the rim and dunk the ball. Considering the sport in which we are ultimately interested, that's plenty of hops for me, how about you?
vbg
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