Community Colleges Realign Conferences : All Six Orange County Schools Will Be Affected by Move in Fall of 1986

Southern California Community College athletic directors and administrators have voted to pass controversial re-conferencing proposals that will affect all six Orange County community colleges.

At a day-long meeting on Tuesday presided over by the California Assn. of Community Colleges (CACC) at Golden West College, the following realignment plans, which will be in effect starting in the fall of 1986, were passed:

- The Pacific-9 football conference, or so-called “super conference,” will be disbanded. Pac-9 members Fullerton and Golden West will join the new South Coast Conference, which will include Cerritos, Mt. San Antonio, Long Beach City, El Camino, Pasadena City and Compton, but not Taft and Bakersfield, who were in the Pac-9. The new South Coast Conference will be in effect for all men’s and women’s sports of the eight schools.

- All sports programs at Orange Coast, Santa Ana, Saddleback and Cypress, with the exception of football, will merge with Riverside City and Citrus, now in Inland Valley Conference, to form a new conference that is yet to be named.

- In football, Orange Coast, Santa Ana and Saddleback will continue to compete in the Mission Conference. The only change in the Mission will be the addition of one school, Grossmont, making it a 10-team conference.

Football coaches Hal Sherbeck of Fullerton and Dick Tucker of Orange Coast were pleased with the changes. Fullerton will no longer have to play Taft, a school which has one of the best football programs in the nation and is allowed to recruit athletes from out of state. Orange Coast, meanwhile, remains in the Mission, which is less competitive than the new South Coast Conference. That gives the Pirates a better chance at reversing their decline of recent seasons.

But there were also administrators who were voted against the realignment changes and are unhappy with their passages.

One of the more vocal critics of the new conference structures was Orange Coast’s Dean of Health and Physical Education and Athletic Administrator, Susan Brown, who clashed with Tucker on how to vote on the proposals.

The women’s sports programs at Orange Coast, including swimming, tennis, cross-country, basketball and track, are among the best in the state and Brown sees no reason why the Pirates should be moving to a conference that is widely viewed to be weaker than the old South Coast.

“Our women’s sports programs are super-strong, and now we won’t have anyone to compete against,” she said. “Our (women’s) coaches are devastated about this--there are a lot of unhappy people around here.

“There was obviously a difference of opinion on our staff on what side to take on this. My position is that Orange Coast is one of the biggest community colleges in the nation, and that we shouldn’t have placed ourselves with five other schools that aren’t as good. I think choices were made with consideration given only to football and basketball. But we lost the battle.”

Santa Ana Athletic Director Roger Wilson, while acknowledging that it is probably best for the Dons to move to a new conference, said that he has reservations about the switch that will keep Fullerton and Santa Ana, the two oldest schools in the county, from being conference rivals for the first time in his memory.

“We’re really going to miss our old rivalries, with Fullerton and with Mt. San Antonio, too,” he said. “These conference changes are how tradition gets lost.”

Roger See, Fullerton’s basketball coach, was another who was not satisfied with the reconferencing.

The new South Coast Conference will be one of the best basketball conferences in the state. El Camino was this year’s state champion, while Long Beach City, Mt. San Antonio and Cerritos are also among California foremost basketball powers.

“The Pac-9 was a football super conference, this is a basketball super conference,” See said of the new South Coast. “This has got to be the strongest conference in the state. I’m trying to be positive about the change, but it’s tough to deal with.”

Coaches agreed that the new South Coast will also be better than the old South Coast in track and field, but that it will not be as competitive as the old South Coast in baseball.

New South Coast Conference (All sports) Fullerton Golden West Cerritos Mt. San Antonio Long Beach City El Camino Pasadena City Compton New Mission Conference

(Football only) Orange Coast Santa Ana Saddleback Riverside City Citrus Palomar Grossmont San Diego City San Diego Mesa Southwestern New Unnamed Conference

(All sports but football)Orange Coast Santa Ana Saddleback Cypress Riverside City Citrus Old South Coast Conference (All sports but football) Cerritos Golden West Cypress Santa Ana Fullerton Mt. San Antonio Orange Coast Compton Saddleback Old Mission Conference (Football only) Orange Coast Saddleback Santa Ana Riverside City San Diego Mesa Southwestern San Diego City Palomar Citrus Old Pac-9 Conference (Football only) Fullerton Golden West Cerritos Mt. San Antonio Long Beach City El Camino Pasadena City Bakersfield Taft