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Thought the league situation in Orange County was confused? You haven't seen anything yet. Now there is a proposal before the Southern Section to reduce the Orange County athletic leagues to just three: North, South and Central. Curious about who would be in each league. Check this out:

North	Central	South
Anaheim Brea Olinda Buena Park Canyon Cypress El Dorado Esperanza Fullerton Katella Kennedy La Habra Magnolia Savanna Sonora Sunny Hills Troy Valencia Western.	Bolsa Grande Century Edison El Modena Foothill Fountain Valley Garden Grove Huntington Beach La Quinta Loara Los Alamitos Los Amigos Marina Ocean View Pacifica Rancho Alamitos Saddleback Santa Ana Santa Ana Valley Santiago Tustin Villa Park Westminster	Aliso Niguel Capistrano Valley Corona del Mar Costa Mesa Dana Hills El Toro Estancia Irvine Laguna Beach Laguna Hills Mission Viejo Newport Harbor Northwood (opens 2000) San Clemente Trabuco Hills University Woodbridge.

Unwieldy? Sure looks like it to us. But that won't stop Huntington Beach principal Jim Staunton, who will ask county principals to consider this new alignment as the model for the new way to create leagues for Orange County public schools. The principals will meet Sept. 1 to create new leagues for the 1999-2002 school years. "We've been talking since June about splitting the county into three geographic areas, then letting those areas create leagues among themselves before coming back to vote on it as a whole," Staunton told the Orange County Register.

Representatives from the county's 10 current leagues met this last Friday to discuss the proposal. The leagues will meet next week to discuss it before voting Sept. 1. Under the plan the county would be divided with 18 schools north of Ball Road and Taft Avenue in the north, 24 schools west of the Newport (55) Freeway in the central and the 17 remaining schools in the south. "It's a new way of looking at the releaguing process," Loara principal John Dahlem told the Register. "The question is whether the Freeway and Garden Grove Leagues would allow themselves to be split up."

The plan would alleviate a major complaint of south county principals who claimed northern schools were more interested in maintaining their own status quo last year when the county was struggling with how to releague. Principals eventually approved a plan with eight changes, all in south county, but then voted to maintain the status quo, pending resolution of where to place Santa Margarita, Mater Dei, Servite and Rosary. The Southern Section ordered all four private schools out of the county placement area in April and an appeal to the state CIF on the vote was recently