JC Cutbacks Cloud Future of SCC Bowl

When athletic conferences for California community colleges were realigned for the 1986-1987 season, the Southern California Conference was designed as an 18-team, two-division league, the largest in the state.

Then a hitch developed. Eight of the schools in the conference happened to be from the Los Angeles Community College District.

As a result of faculty layoffs and budget cutbacks in the district, the conference lost 15 teams in fall sports from L.A. schools. District schools could not guarantee that they could field teams in time for the creation of fall schedules. Five of the 15 dropped teams were football programs.

And the losses continue to mount. The SCC also may have lost a postseason football bowl game to call its own.

After Pierce College eliminated its football program because of a tight budget and the lack of qualified coaches, the school also ended its sponsorship of the Brahma Bowl--one of eight bowl games in the state last year.

Had Pierce maintained its program and the bowl, the game likely would have been a matchup of champions from the Southern California and Western State conferences. Without the Brahma Bowl, both conferences--which together comprise the nine L.A. district schools--are without a guaranteed berth in a postseason game.

The SCC still hopes to sponsor a bowl, according to conference President Joe Iantorno. At the moment, however, it has no financial backers for a game. The state has set an informal deadline for the end of the month for scheduling a bowl game.

If no bowl game is established, the conferences would have only an outside shot at earning a bowl berth. The state bowl selection committee, which relies on private sponsors to fund its games, usually looks to cut expenses by pairing two regional teams.

“Fan support of community college football in some areas is not very good,” said Walt Rilliet, athletic commissioner for the California Assn. of Community Colleges. “So we look to keep expenses down by limiting travel and getting two teams that will attract a good crowd.”

Two other bowl games--one in San Diego and the other in the Golden Valley Conference, the northernmost league in the state--are also in jeopardy, Van Horn said.

“I have a big question mark next to the San Diego bowl,” said Stu Van Horn, public information officer for the CACC. “At this point, all I have is that it would be played at San Diego City College on Dec. 6.

“Our standard has been to have eight bowl games,” Van Horn added. “But if we only have six or seven, that would be fine, too. Since we don’t normally take two teams from the same conference, each of the conferences could conceivably have a chance to make a bowl.”

On paper, at least. There are 10 conferences that play football in the new state alignment, and with five confirmed bowls, it would appear that each league champion could earn a postseason bowl berth.

But, given informal travel limits and given that only one game has been confirmed for south of Bakersfield, site of the Potato Bowl, there could very well be some people left out by the bowl bull.

State of confusion, Part II: Perhaps the final snag in finalizing intercollegiate athletic programs in the L.A. district is whether teachers from outside of physical education departments will be allowed to coach teams.

The practice has been permitted in the past, but with six district PE instructors laid off June 30, the process for determining coaches is more complicated.

First, the laid-off instructors must be offered a coaching position before the job can be given to a teacher from outside of physical education, according to the faculty union contract.If, in theory, the offer is rejected, the coaching position can be offered to an instructor from another academic area.

The district, however, has yet to approve a proposal allowing any non-PE teachers to coach--period.

“If we could have separated this as an athletics issue, I’m confident that it could have been resolved by now,” Pierce President David Wolf said. “But we weren’t able to do that, so we’ve been slowed down.”

Wolf said he still expects an agreement to be reached that would allow non-PE teachers to coach once the legal channels--offering the job to laid-off instructors--have been exhausted.

“The problem is, I’m not sure it will happen in time to help,” Wolf said.

L.A. district schools have been given until Sept. 22 to announce which spring teams they will field in the Southern California Conference.

The appointment of women’s athletic director Marian McWilliams as men’s athletic director at Pierce was not surprising considering what it accomplished:

Savings of about $5,000 by consolidating the athletic director positions of the two programs.

Elimination of a transition period by hiring an experienced administrator.

Naming an applicant already popular with coaches in the program.

McWilliams, who has served as women’s athletic director since 1977, inherited the largest athletic program in the nine-school district. Pierce, despite eliminating football and men’s basketball, will field teams in 16 of the 19 sports sanctioned by the state.

“I know many people feel that football and men’s basketball are an important part of the program, and they are,” McWilliams said. “But they are only part of the program. I think we offer a very good and balanced men’s and women’s program in terms of the number of teams fielded.”

Bob O’Connor, who resigned as men’s athletic director in June following the elimination of the two sports, praised his successor, who was one of three finalists for the position with Bob Lyons and Erwin Goldblum.

“Any of the three would have done a good job, but Mary is experienced and will be very good there,” O’Connor said.

McWilliams, who was selected state coach of the year after Pierce won the state women’s tennis championship in 1980, will return as coach of the program.

Paul Xanthos, who guided the men’s team to the Metropolitan Conference title and a runner-up finish in the Southern California championships, had said he would coach both tennis programs if he could hire an assistant coach.

“I’d need the assistant because in tennis, the men’s and women’s teams play at opposite sites,” he said. “The assistant would have to run the women’s team while I stayed with the men.”

The legality of such a format and the complicated nature of hiring coaches in a period of layoffs eliminated that possibility, but Xanthos was optimistic.

“Mary has been a good coach and she’s a good athletic director,” Xanthos said. “I just hope doing both isn’t too much for her.”

McWilliams said she is up to the task.

“I served as athletic director for both programs during the spring of 1980, because it was split up by semesters at the time,” she said. “So I learned all about what it’s like to drag the men’s baseball field and the like. I’m ready to get started.”