Prep Preview and Report

CIF Revises O.C. Leagues--October 7, 1997

The Orange County Register today has reported that Mater Dei and Santa Margarita, two of the top high school athletic programs in Orange County, have agreed to compete as independents in most team sports for the 1998-2000 school years, according to CIF Southern Section administrators.

What this means is that both Mater Dei and Santa Margarita will compete against Public schools starting next fall instead of the former Angelus League alignment where private schools competed only against other privates, and public schools competed only against public schools. This will clearly raise some issues among some folks concerning how schools, such as Mater Dei, "recruit" their athletes.

An interesting twist to the arrangement is that while the schools will compete in league competition and the players will be eligible for all-league honors, they will not be eligible to win varsity league titles in boys or girls basketball (or the other major team sports). They will still be able to qualify for CIF playoffs based on criteria to be developed by the CIF offices. Mater Dei, is currently a member of the South Coast League, and will move over to the Sunset League, while Santa Margarita, which is now in the Sea View League, will switch to the South Coast League.

The Register reported that Mater Dei coach Bruce Rollinson said: ``I guess it means if we win all our games next year I get an asterisk next to our name. But my administration says this was the best compromise possible at the moment and I'm going to support them. Do I think there is a better way? I would like to go back to an Angelus League setup and play private schools.''

Santa Margarita basketball coach Jerry DeBusk also had reservations, telling the Register that: ``I'm surprised the powers that (be) have come up with this,'' DeBusk said. ``I'm a traditionalist. Whether it is high school basketball or college basketball, I love the fact teams compete for conference titles. ``This concept is new to me, and I've never heard of this before.''

Servite and Rosary, currently in the Golden West League, will stay put, even though indications were that they wanted to move to reduce their travel costs and get more even competition. According to the Register story, the "placement of parochial schools, especially Mater Dei and Santa Margarita, has been an ongoing controversy since 1989, when Santa Margarita — and later Mater Dei, Servite and Rosary — asked to be placed in public school leagues. All four schools cited growing transportation problems in parochial leagues that stretched from south Orange County to the San Fernando Valley. "

The Register also noted that: "Previously large parochial schools had always played in the Angelus League with other private schools. The county's 58 public principals unanimously opposed placing private schools in public leagues, claiming parochial schools have advantages in athletics primarily because they don't have attendance boundaries and draw students from a wide geographical base."

That is, they can recruit, unlike public schools, who technically can't. So tell that to the coaches at Simi High, a "public" school, which this year didn't recruit players, but somehow has one of the top preps from Ventura living with Brandon Fullove's parents who have become the legal guardians of the Ventura player. But nope, that's not recruiting.

Servite athletic director Larry Walker told the Register he felt his school and sister school Rosary were not included in the Re-leaguing this round because they are not perceived to be as athletically powerful as Mater Dei and Santa Margarita. ``We do get along with all the public schools in our league,'' Walker said. ``We don't have the problems the other schools have. Nobody complains about us.'' That is, Servite and Rosary don't "recruit" as openly or as actively, and thus are not really a threat to the public schools, and thus they didn't really need to be dealt with now.

According to the Register, the Southern Section council ordered the county to accept the private schools beginning in 1992. Private schools already had been in leagues with public schools in other parts of the section for years, including Santa Clara of Oxnard, which competes in the Frontier League, and Damien of La Verne, which competes in the Baseline League.

To make room for Mater Dei, Marina was originally going to be moved from the Sunset to the Pacific Coast League. This apparently sparked some opposition from both the Sunset and Pacific Coast League's school principals. Marina had scheduled an appeal of the move for the CIF council meeting on Oct. 21, but because of the "compromise agreement" Marina will now stay in the Sunset League and the Pacific Coast League will be a five-team league until the Irvine Unified School District opens Northwood, its fourth high school, in 1999. The appeal has now been dropped by both the PCL and Marina, but it is anticipated that Esperanza, will continue with its appeal because its students will face too much travel in the Sunset League.

It seems to us at SoCalHoops that this is not a really good solution to the problem of attaining balance in athletic competition, but maybe it's better than doing nothing at all. Admittedly a real workable solution will need to be worked out over the next two years. Sure, private schools always seem to have the upper hand in such "recruiting" wars; they are said to offer "better" education (i.e., lower class size, more developed curriculum--but some would say that public "magnets" can be just as intense or better at providing quality education), and therefore are more attractive to most parents who are interested in education (believe it or not, some parents actually think about such things). More important though, they can draw from an almost unlimited geographic region, particularly if they make arrangements for "out-of-state" athletes to live with a legal guardian. Few schools really flagrantly engage in such tactics, but there will always be those few that do.

 

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