And as I joked with a friend when my public school football team (coming off of a state championship) played Dematha and lost big, the University of Maryland football coach keeps complaining to the AD that he wants to have the largest recruiting budget in the state. The AD responds, "That's impossible, there's no way we can compete with Dematha."Many private schools allow "re-classing," which is essentially repeating the same grade. In public schools, an athlete has four years eligibility starting the moment he/she walks in the door as a freshman, regardless of their age.