Orange Coast College athletics facing one-year postseason ban
Orange Coast College is facing sanctions proposed by the state governing body for community college athletics that would prevent the school’s sports teams from competing in postseason contests in the 2016-17 school year.
Doug Bennett, OCC’s executive director of college advancement, said the California Community College Athletic Assn. sent a letter to the school last week that detailed proposed sanctions. The letter cited violations in a handful of sports dating back to 2009.
Bennett also said the CCCAA expressed concern about a lack of institutional control within OCC athletics.
OCC coaches learned Monday of the proposed sanctions, which also include a probationary period beginning next fall. Approximately a dozen coaches attended an afternoon meeting on campus to discuss coordinating an appeal.
“We don’t agree with what was proposed and we are trying to figure out how to respond, both from a coaching and administration level,” Bennett said. “We have 10 working days to respond and the athletic department is working with the administration and legal representation from the [Coastline Community College District] to meet that deadline and create a dialogue.”
Bennett said the school had been awaiting the CCCAA’s response to allegations of violations of misconduct within the football program following the 2015 season that resulted in the dismissal of an assistant coach.
But program-wide sanctions were unexpected, Bennett said.
Other violations mentioned in the letter included:
•The 2009 suspension of baseball coach John Altobelli for multiple ejections that prevented him from coaching the team on its run to the state title that season.
•Several fall sports teams beginning practices prior to the allowable start date in 2013, resulting in a CCCAA mandate that all fall sports except football delete one contest from that year’s schedule.
•The aforementioned football violations that Pirates Coach Kevin Emerson said included an assistant coach providing extra benefits to student-athletes, such as picking up one player from the airport.
Bennett said these violations were all self-reported after being discovered through the school’s own compliance measures. He also said all but the football violations had drawn penalties with which OCC has already complied.
“We think some of the things in the letter don’t really take into account all the facts from our side, and that there is misunderstanding about measures we have taken to prevent this from happening again,” Bennett said.
Bennett said coaches expressed frustration about the length of time that had elapsed since some violations mentioned in the letter had occurred. Bennett said coaches also protested to what they viewed as double jeopardy involved with penalties.
“I use the analogy that if you wrote a bad check for something in 2009, it has probably been dropped from your credit report, which is more reflective of what you’ve done in the last two years,” Bennett said. “I think there is a feeling of concern among our coaches about the loss for the students. There is also frustration that among our 24 sports, the violations only involved four or five, so why punish the other 20 sports? How much do you penalize people for doing something wrong?”
Altobelli was suspended by the school for three games last week, when it was discovered that a player who was academically ineligible played in one game (an OCC loss). But Bennett said that violation was not included in the CCCAA letter.
In addition to baseball, which won state championships in 2014 and 2015, OCC is perennially among the top programs in the state in men’s and women’s cross country, as well as men’s volleyball.
The football program earned its first bowl appearance since 1993 last fall and the Pirates are also regularly represented in the postseason by women’s volleyball, women’s basketball, men’s golf, men’s and women’s track and field, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s soccer, as well as men’s and women’s water polo.
A ban on postseason competition could hurt recruiting and the reputation of the athletic program and coaches for years to come, said one coach who wished not to be identified.
Emerson said while he is optimistic about the school’s chances of winning an appeal, a ban on postseason play would have minimal impact on his program.
“What I’ve told coaches and players is that we can still win a [conference] championship and achieve our other main objectives of getting a good education and helping our kids transfer to four-year schools,” Emerson said.
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