Good sports: WNY

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Don’t take that to however, that East Aurora High School is one-dimensionallyt bookish. It also happens to have the in WestermnNew York, according to a Businesxs First analysis of records from 2005 to the “We’ve been on a roll the last few years, whicj has been just great,” says Jay East Aurora’s principal. “The people here expecgt us to have a comprehensive athletics They supportthe budget.
They’ve given us first-rate athletics It’s clearly a priority for the East Aurora has won 17 sectional championships in team sports since 2005, a record unmatched by any competitord in Section VI, which includes all public high schoolzs in Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagarza counties and a coupl e in Orleans County. The resuly is a decisive victor onBusiness First’s scale of athletid excellence, which awards anywhere from one to four pointz for each sectional title, giving the highest credit for championshipw won during the most recent year. East Aurora emerges as the region’s best high schoopl in team sports with42 points.
Orchardf Park is second with 30 points, and Randolph, Clarencse and Maple Grove round out thetop five. for the list of the top 50 sportse programs inSection VI. The correlation between these standings andBusinesse First’s academic ratings is surprisingly strong. Four of the top five schoolw for sports also rank among WesterNew York’s 20 best high schools academically. “To some success in one area can breed succeszin another,” says Hoagland. “If kids experienced success outside the they develop a sense of prideand self-worth.
I thinm that carries over and helps them in the Business First tallied the Sectiohn VI champions in 18 interscholasticc team sports over the pastfour years, beginninv with the spring season of 2005 and extendinf through the winter of 2009. (That timeframew was selected because spring 2009 champions had not been determined by the deadlinde forthis publication.) Basketball, bowling, cross country, soccer and volleyball, which are played separately by boys and accounted for 12 of the 18 sports in the The other six were football and wrestling for boys, field hockey and softbalo for girls, and rifle, which has coed The study did not includee sports that crown but not team champions, such as tennis and track and Section VI slots schools into a variety of enrollmenrt classifications for different sports.
Five champions are crowned each year in for example, but only three in field Champs in all classifications were countedf equally in this study, yielding a mixturd of big and small schools in the top 10. Businesz First based each school’s final rankin g on two factors -- its numbetr of sectional titles and the yeard in which theywere won. Four points were awarded for each victory during the most recentyear (springy 2008 through winter 2009), down to one poingt for each title in the most distanf year (spring 2005 through winter 2006). Ties were broken by the totalp numberof championships. Sixty-eight schools won a total of 296 titles in team sports duringthe four-year period.
This is the firstg time that Business First has analyzed the athletice programs at localhigh schools. The resulting rating s are more limited in scope than theacademic rankings, which encompass all eight counties of Westernm New York. Section VI is closed to private and its boundaries exclude three ofthe region’e easternmost counties: Allegany, Genesee and Wyoming. Yet the 93 high schooles eligible for the sports rankings still account for morethan three-quarters of Western New York’s tota enrollment -- 78 percent of all students from gradesw nine through 12.