THE COMMISSIONER : If Ever a Job Demanded a Demanding Person to Fill It, Southern Section’s Ray Plutko Capably Fills That Bill

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.

As he has for the past several years, Ray Plutko escaped his duties as CIF Southern Section commissioner in March to attend the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament.

For Plutko, it’s his only real break during the school year from his job as director and administer of athletics for the section’s 478 member schools.

“It’s my big getaway,” Plutko, 46, said.

Some getaway.

Plutko didn’t just kick back in the Rupp Arena at Lexington, Ky. to watch four of the country’s finest college basketball teams play for the national championship. And he didn’t return from Lexington with tales of Villanova’s monumental upset of Georgetown.

Instead, Plutko studied the crowd-control measures taken at the games. He watched how the ushers dealt with fans. He observed the NCAA’s press department. He noticed the types of awards programs the NCAA held. He attended workshops.

Meet Ray Plutko, confessed workaholic.

“My staff kids me about how I never take a real vacation,” Plutko said. “I’m a workaholic by nature, and I guide my office the same way.

“There’s a fine point where I have to be aware that other people in my office also have families, that they have personal needs, too. Real sensitivity is knowing when to back off other employees. I probably haven’t learned that yet.”

But you’d never see Plutko’s staff complaining.

With the many demands placed on Plutko and his three administrators--Dean Crowley, Bill Clark and Hellyer--there isn’t much time, especially during the school year, for vacations. When the Southern Section playoffs roll around, there isn’t much time for anything but work.

“During playoff periods, we average about 200 calls a day on eligibility cases,” Plutko said. “And that doesn’t include the people who come into the office (with complaints.)”

Nor does that include the time and manpower necessary to stage championship playoffs in 25 sports.

Plutko is not the type to take three-hour lunches or pal around on the phone. In his five years as commissioner, he has developed a reputation as a shrewd, business-like administrator. He admits he might even be somewhat aloof at times.

“The first couple of years, I was new at the job and I wanted to make a good impression,” he said. “Maybe I took more of a straight path because I’m family oriented and I like to have some privacy.

“It is hard to get to know me. There are so many requests of this office that I may only have two minutes to answer a question that should take 15 minutes. When we get those 200 calls a day, if I took 50 of them and talked to everyone for 15 minutes, the day would be pretty long.”

It’s due to the nature of the business that Plutko can’t be everyone’s buddy. But he’ll certainly make an effort to be friendly and cordial.

He makes a point of going to two or three games a week to share camaraderie with people he deals with--the same ones he might have handled in a terse manner over the phone.

Plutko, who replaced Tom Byrnes in 1980 when Byrnes became CIF state commissioner, thinks he has become more relaxed professionally. He’s gained confidence and maturity in his position. He’s learned how to budget his time so that he may be more efficient.

That’s how he runs his life away from the job, too. Even without the suit and tie, Plutko is Mr. Business.

“I’m not one to sit still,” he said. “If I’m home, I generally don’t sit down and watch TV. I’ll sit down with a book. If I get bored reading, rather than just relaxing, I’ll go out and do some yardwork. I’m a busy person. My relaxation is taken in other activity.”

One of his hobbies is genealogy, the study of his family ancestry. Plutko enjoys tracing his Slovak heritage, and will take a trip with his mother and one of his daughters to Czechoslovakia this summer to visit relatives.

“That’s how I keep my sanity,” Plutko said. “You need an outlet, especially when you have pressures at different times of the year. To me, research does it, and every summer for 15 years I’ve coached a Pony League baseball team, just to keep my hand in coaching.”

As Plutko was growing up in McKeesport, Pa., a steel town 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh, he aspired to be a teacher and coach. He was a good basketball player and was the sixth man on a McKeesport High School team that won the Pennsylvania state championship in 1955.

That season, McKeesport also played in a Christmas Tournament against Overbrook High School, which featured a center named Wilt Chamberlain.

“It was a great game,” Plutko recalled. “They beat us, 75-74, and Wilt scored 46 points. They were eliminated in the state tournament, so we didn’t have to play them again. I’ve seen Wilt three or four times since then, and we always rekindle the memories of that game.”

Plutko joined the Navy in 1956 and was stationed on Terminal Island at Long Beach. He later attended and played basketball at Mt. San Antonio College and Upland College (now Azusa Pacific). There, he met Sharon Uhl, who he married in 1962.

From then until 1980, Plutko, who resides in Chino with Sharon and their six children, worked in a myriad of occupations--all of which made him better qualified for his current position.

He has worked at two newspapers, been a high school teacher, a coach, an athletic director and an assistant principal. He was the assistant principal and basketball coach at Notre Dame High School in Riverside before accepting a job as Southern Section administrator under Tom Byrnes in 1975.

“No matter who calls me on the phone--a coach, principal, athletic director, parent--I will give them the same amount of time,” Plutko said. “I think they know that I have been in their position, and I know what they’re going through. I also have a large enough family where I know the pressures the kids are going through at the high school level.”

Since becoming commissioner in 1980, Plutko has been praised for being an innovator.

Frustrated by the amount of game forfeitures, Plutko two years ago developed CIF eligibility cards, which are optional at Southern Section high schools. Students fill out a card with their address and age when they enter a school and it is kept on file along with the sports the student plays.

If a student moves and attends another school, the new school will know exactly what sports and where the student played, so that it can determine whether the student is eligible.

Plutko said the eligibility cards have cut forfeitures by about 80%.

Plutko also became heavily involved in corporate sponsorship, which has helped offset some of the section’s costs for staging championship events and awards ceremonies.

Tom Byrnes secured Dr. Pepper as a sponsor, but Plutko has added several companies to the list, including Wilson, Spotbilt, Gatorade, Ford, Carls, Jr. and the Angels and Dodgers.

With corporate sponsorship, the Southern Section can afford to showcase its baseball championships in Anaheim Stadium, even though the gate receipts may not cover the rental fee. The section has averaged an annual net corporate sponsorship sum of about $100,000.

Three years ago, when Plutko heard complaints about playoff structure and the selection process, he decided to print the selection procedure in all of the playoff handbooks, which are available to members of the press as well as coaches and administrators.

“Now, I would say the average coach can figure out 70% of the pairings just by using our format,” Plutko said.

Plutko said his office is conducting more surveys of its member schools to see how many students are participating and what their grade point averages are. The office also tries to print some type of major publication each year. This year, it has issued a manual on cable television, which tells schools what they should do and what questions they should ask, and another on releaguing.

“My personal goal is to come up with something innovative each year,” Plutko said. “If I don’t come up with something, and I haven’t reached that point yet, it would be frustrating.”

Plutko has two innovations planned for next year, which will go hand in hand with what he believes is a major issue of the decade--schools’ re-emphasis on academics.

The Southern Section will start an academic awards program, for which it will present a championship-like banner to the top academic team in each varsity sport. It also will honor a male and female Student-Athlete of the Year.

Plutko also announced a new sports calendar for next year, which will leave a dead week after each season with no athletic activity. It is designed so that multi-sport students can rest their bodies and minds for a week.

All that from a man whose mind rarely rests.