Just How Much Power Does or Should CIF Possess?

CIF SOUTHERN SECTION

The California Interscholastic Federation has a most difficult task of keeping track of the state’s high school athletic programs. And that job--with a limited staff--often has come under scrutiny, particularly when a player is ruled ineligible or a coach starts winning with a transfer student. But most coaches, administrators, parents and students think the CIF is doing its job fairly. And because of that, the CIF probably won’t be changing any of its policies in the near future.

For a while this year, it appeared that team finger-pointing might become the next sanctioned sport in the California Interscholastic Federation.

In fact, a number of fingers were indignantly pointed at the CIF following three recent cases in which basketball players switched from their neighborhood high school to a distant school with a more successful sports program.

Some angry parents and coaches suggested that CIF rules had loopholes the size of football fields, and that it demonstrated less enforcement power than a referee without a whistle.

These observers fear such cases represent a trend toward the recruitment and professionalization of athletes barely into their teens. They don’t like it, and they like to think that CIF is to blame.

“How can (these schools) feel proud of their accomplishments when they haven’t the slightest idea of who half their team members are, or where they came from?” wrote Marc Viens of Long Beach in a letter to The Times.

“Come on, CIF, wake up and bring integrity back to sports,” urged Rich Macias of La Habra in another letter.

Said Bill Notley, Lynwood High School basketball coach: “Someone, somewhere along the line has got to take a stand, or what’s to stop a coach from going up to L.A. and adopting a kid to build his program?”

In fact, nothing stands in the way. Nothing but the honesty of most coaches and school principals.

Critics say they would prefer a vigilant CIF to track down and punish possible wrongdoers--an outfit along the lines of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. But those same people probably would not like the price tag, or the intrusive results.

The NCAA, for example, spends $1.5 million a year on its enforcement division. Compared to that, CIF is a friendly, Mom-and-Pop operation.

It has no budget for investigations and enforcement, generally relying on the cooperation of its members. Those members are the principals of each school.

After all, how much can you realistically expect for the price of $30 a year, plus 16 cents a student?

Those are the current dues the CIF charges its member schools. Smaller schools may pay as little as $50 a year to belong to the section and receive its benefits.

California is carved into 10 CIF sections, the largest of which is the Southern Section. It encompasses 478 schools scattered from Bishop to the Mexican border. This section also ranks as the eighth largest in the nation.

Its duties include hiring and supervising game officials, loaning instructional films, distributing numerous free publications, compiling master schedules of all games in the three major sports, staging playoffs in 25 sports, purchasing playoff awards and establishing eligibility standards.

When you imagine this mighty Southern Section office, what do you envision?

Probably not a tiny building at Artesia, somewhat smaller than the neighboring tennis courts of Gahr High School. On first glance, the office could be mistaken for a modest tennis locker room.

Inside are four professional staff members.

Although some people seem to wish it was otherwise, the Southern Section is actually a far cry from the Miami Vice squad. If its workload was divided up, the ratio would be 119 schools to each staffer.

That sort of austerity also typifies the state CIF office at Fullerton, which has just five staffers.

“We’re not this big police force, running up and down alleys,” said Tom Byrnes, state CIF commissioner.

Ray Plutko, Southern Section commissioner, “This is a service office, not an investigatory office. Our constitution places the (policing) responsibility on the building principals.

“The Southern Section is not Ray Plutko. It is the member schools. Most people assume the CIF is this office, and that I and my assistants have free rein to do what we want. That’s not the case.”

Changes in the Southern Section’s constitution may be recommended by the staff, coaches, superintendents or leagues. The council, made up of one principal per league, votes on changes once a year.

“My role is to keep the ship afloat, provide a service and orchestrate that service,” Plutko said. “It’s not to dream up the rules, and, in fact, I have no vote. I think some people are frustrated because I can’t use my title to get things immediately.”

Dr. Dennis Evans, principal of Corona del Mar, said, “Because of its size, the office seems to be reactive rather than pro-active on some issues. Ray’s approach has been to decentralize the office simply because of the sheer size of the section.”

The opinions of Orange County residents appeared divided on how the Southern Section should have acted in the case of Ricky Butler and Desi Hazely. The two basketball players moved from their parents’ homes in Lynwood as freshmen to Huntington Beach’s Ocean View High School under the care of a guardian.

After the former guardian moved away last summer, the two sophomores moved in with Coach Jim Harris, and helped the Seahawks become runners-up in the Southern Section 5-A championships.

Lynwood principal Harold Cebrun brought undue influence charges to the Southern Section office, but Plutko found no evidence to support the claim.

According to the Southern Section, Butler and Hazely were eligible at Ocean View, but the school district last month ordered the team to relinquish its Sunset League title.

Principal John Myers announced that Harris would lose his coaching job for using what a district report called “undue influence to retain the players at the school.”

Notley, who would have coached the boys if they had remained with their parents at Lynwood, said “They say the kids like it there, they’re happy there, they’re getting along well.

“But the point is that CIF rules were bent to get them there. If a kid goes to college and gets money under the table, like at Tulane, he’s happy, too, but that’s not the point.”

Oceanside High School’s Chuck Hall, president of the California State Assn. of Athletic Directors, agrees.

“If you and your parents live in District X, you should go to school in District X. I’m sure there are people taking advantage of the rules, as in any profession.

“But if you have a strong athletic program and a strong administration, these things don’t happen.

“Even if you don’t have a strong administration, most schools in the Southern California area are so close together that if something starts to happen, pretty soon everybody knows about it.”

One situation that triggered a flurry of finger-pointing in the San Diego Section this school year involved the actions of basketball coach Dave Holmgren.

As coach at Castle Park High School, Holmgren had paid his players up to $100 a month to work on his house and car. He also financed their trips to basketball camp and purchased contact lenses for one player.

Then Holmgren left the Chula Vista school in a dispute with the booster club and moved to Sweetwater High at National City as an assistant coach for the 1984-85 season.

But the dispute escalated when Holmgren’s favorite player and leading scorer, Mahlon Williams, switched schools with him. Holmgren admitted he had loaned Williams’ mother the money for a down payment on a house in the new area.

Under CIF rules, a coach may not lure players outside an area to his school. In this case, the San Diego Section investigated but took no action because there are no rules against a coach lending a player’s family money--unless it is done with intent to recruit.

Since Williams’ mother said she had planned to move anyway, the case was not interpreted as recruitment.

“The whole key is whether it was done to entice a player,” said Kendall Webb, San Diego Section commissioner.

“I talked to Dave, and he did nothing wrong, based on the information I received.”

Webb added, “There are no limitations on the amount of money a coach can spend.”

Warren Hayashi of Santa Clara High School, president elect of the Athletic Directors Assn., said, “There’s always going to be a loophole. Some people will exercise all their options to find a way to get around the rules.”

Hall said most athletic directors have “no big complaints with the rules on the books now.” He said he believes the CIF does not need to put more emphasis on investigations.

“If you do that, you’re telling everyone, look, we think you’re dishonest. I don’t think that’s a position the CIF would like to be in.

“In spite of all the rumors and innuendoes, I think, basically, people in education and athletics are pretty danged honest.”

Plutko said the Southern Section office receives numerous calls concerning possible violations of eligibility rules.

Of those, about half have enough substance to warrant a call to the principal, Plutko said. “There is a segment of people who comment without knowing all the facts,” Plutko said. “We get a lot of calls saying, ‘So-and-so over there is doing this.’

“And I say, ‘Could you give me more specific information?’

“And they say, ‘Well, I can’t, but I know they’re doing it.’

“If I were to drop all the work we’re doing and get in the car and go over there every time we get a call like this, it would hurt the credibility of the schools.

“The key is that we are all educators. We are all from the same background, and within education there are ethical codes. That was the premise of the CIF from the beginning and the one it operates on to this day.

“We don’t make students ineligible. They make themselves ineligible, although we may be asked to question the status of an athlete.”

The CIF is taken to court by disgruntled parents or coaches about 10 times a year, according to the CIF’s attorney, Andy Patterson. This includes about two cases a year from the Southern Section.

Amazingly, the CIF wins about 90% of the time, according to Patterson and Plutko. The courts usually support the CIF because when students join a team, they have automatically agreed to abide by the CIF’s rules.

To those who say the CIF should be more aggressive in ferreting out eligibility violators, Patterson points out that the CIF has no governmental authority to levy taxes to support such ventures.

“There are hard choices to be made,” Patterson said. “You could have an investigative force out there checking everyone who moves. But there are 20 million residents of California and almost half a million high school students, and this is a very transient state.

“Does the public really want a tax bill from an outfit like the CIF? Do they really want an organization like the CIF going out with a horrendous budget to interview people and conduct neighborhood investigations?

“That thought even offends me. If I want to move, I want to move.

“There have been those two cases this year. Now put that in the context of a quarter-million to half-million students in California, and that’s a pretty good percentage.”

Byrnes noted that the situation was once much worse. The CIF was formed in 1914 because educators were distressed that some schools recruited 30-year-old oil field workers for their football teams, alongside their 15-year-old students.

In those days, Patterson said, some students would stay in high school as long as seven years to play sports. Out of that experience grew the rule that athletes are only eligible for eight semesters, or four years, in the CIF.

“It’s always easy when something goes wrong to point a finger,” Hall said of today’s eligibility scandals. “But I would not want Tom Byrnes’ job, I’ll tell you.

“For all the responsibilities they have, and for having as small an office as they do, I think they do a marvelous job.”