Proposal to Releague Servite, Rosary Denied

The Southern Section’s releaguing committee has rejected Servite and Rosary high schools’ requests to be placed in the Orange County geographic area with public schools for the purpose of being placed in a county athletic league for the 1992-94 seasons.

At the same time, the 10-member committee, chaired by principal Michael Phillips of Pomona High School, accepted requests by Mater Dei and Santa Margarita to move into the Orange County geographic area, opening the door for the Catholic schools to play in the same leagues with public schools.

Currently, all private schools in Orange County compete against other private schools from Orange County and other counties in what is called the private geographic area by the Southern Section. But escalating transportation costs have forced administrators to look at alternatives for next season.

Member schools of the Southern Section were asked to submit to the committee written requests to be moved to a new geographic area. The committee made its decision Thursday at the Southern Section office in Cerritos.

The schools will have the opportunity to appeal the decision at the Southern Section Executive Committee’s meeting in January. Athletic administrators at Servite and Rosary said they are planning to appeal.

“The decision was made based upon the difficulty of scheduling an all-boys or all-girls school,” said Jim Ryan, Foothill principal, who sat on the committee. Servite is a private all-boys school with 650 students, and Rosary is a private all-girls school with 575 students.

“The schools applied individually as separate applicants, and although the possibility of accepting the schools as one entity was discussed, there wasn’t enough information supplied to the committee to accept them at this time,” Ryan said. “It’s going to take some time to iron out the kinks.”

Tom Vitello, athletic director at Servite, said he was very upset with the decision.

“I’m disappointed,” Vitello said. “Where do we go to play? The only alternative is to remain in the CAA (Catholic Athletic Assn.) and play Bishop Amat, Loyola and St. John Bosco. We’ve been blackballed from Orange County.”