You might remember the interview I had a couple of years ago with Tony Thompson, then and probably now the umpiring supervisor for the SEC and eight other college conferences.

He told me umpires for the College World Series and the regional tournaments leading up to it were selected by the NCAA from a pool of umpires submitted by the various conferences and that normally about 70 percent of the names submitted by the SEC were chosen to umpire post-season play, including the College World Series.

As the SEC qualified four teams for the College World Series this year, it is unlikely more than one or two SEC umpires got that assignment, as umpires from neutral conferences work games in Omaha.

To shift gears, a comment was made to me recently to the effect that private school championships were meaningless and that only the big public school titles held any meaning because those schools had all the great athletes.

By that correlation, the national championship in Division II won by Delta State’s baseball team this year means nothing because they didn’t compete against the big schools.

Sure, and the big high schools have more athletes, just as Ole Miss has more athletes than Delta State. Of course, Tupelo High School, Madison Central or Provine all have a huge pool of athletes to draw from, but that does not diminish the value of titles won by Cathedral, Jackson Prep, Trinity, Mize or any of the many other small or private schools in this state.

Remember the two best players on Ole Miss’s baseball team both played at Hillcrest Christian. Eli Manning played his high school football at small Newman in New Orleans.

Many great athletes and students began their careers at small schools, both private and public, and a number of those kids would have fallen through the cracks at a large school.

While the large high schools are certainly able to offer a more diverse and often more advanced curriculum, good students are always going to learn and will always succeed academically.

The mediocre student will gain more from small classes and individual attention in class and the ordinary kid with little athletic ability will benefit from being able to participate in sports at a small school and might even thrive and become quite good.

Revisiting championships &045;&045; Is the Super Bowl the only meaningful football championship? Tell that to LSU or Southern Cal, South Panola or Jackson Academy, the 1A public school football champion or to the AA or A private school champions.

Is Cathedral’s 1A baseball championship of no meaning because they didn’t play Oak Grove in the playoffs? No.

There is a place in our educational structure for all of these schools from the largest to the smallest. For many parents and their children, there is no choice of schools.

For those who do have a choice, they should always be allowed to do so freely. They, and not government, must decide the best avenue for their children.

And that’s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. Reach him at

AlanWard39157@aol.com.