Welch to Seek OK for Canyon Trip to Hawaii

Canyon High Coach Harry Welch will try to persuade Southern Section officials to allow his football team to play in Hawaii next summer, but he claims that he will not risk offending the governing body in the process.

Canyon, Crespi and Morse High in San Diego have been invited to play in a tripleheader Aug. 25 in Aloha Stadium in Honolulu against three Hawaiian teams. Although Morse has traveled five times to Hawaii and such trips are common in the San Diego Section, Southern Section rules would keep Canyon and Crespi at home next year.

The Southern Section allows teams one out-of-state trip every year but forbids teams from playing outside their sport’s season. Because the tripleheader is scheduled before the Southern Section season starts, the trip would not be approved, Commissioner Stan Thomas said. In addition, the two teams would get a head start on the rest of the section, giving them an unfair advantage, Thomas said. Section rules call for 14 days of practice before a football team’s first game.

“They could be starting near Aug. 1 and that’s obscene,” Thomas said. “There’s a feeling among many principals now that the summer activity is getting out of control. The kids need time to be kids.”

Despite those arguments, Crespi Coach Tim Lins said that his team is interested in traveling. Welch wants to go, too, saying that he is willing to compromise.

“If they want us to miss the first week of hell week when we come back, I’d consider that,” he said. “We’re not looking at this as a way to get ahead of everyone else. We’d make this a vacation.”

Welch emphasized that he is not looking for a fight with the Southern Section, saying, “If the CIF says no, then it’s a dead issue.”

Should Welch decide to make an official appeal, he can take his case to the section’s executive committee, which will next meet Oct. 26.

The tripleheader is a charity event staged as a fund-raiser for the scholarship fund of a Hawaiian high school star who died of a heart attack in 1986.

If Welch needs a supporter, he can find one in Morse Coach John Shacklett, who points out that Ramona and Sweetwater from San Diego also have traveled to Hawaii.

“You’ve got to use your sport for more than winning games,” he said.