CIF Committee Plans Include O.C. Section

The first step toward the reconfiguration of California’s high school athletic sections will be presented to the State Federated Council at its May meeting.

A CIF planning committee has devised three plans, according to committee member Jim Fleming, the superintendent of Placentia Unified School District. The plans, two of which include a separate Orange County section, call for regrouping the state’s 10 sections.

The council will be asked for input but will not act on the plans.

“These are only some options,” Fleming said. “Basically, it’s a starting point for discussion.”

The Legislature renewed the CIF’s authority over high school sports last year, but also required that it develop an overall strategy and implement it before 1996.

Ideally, Fleming said, the plans would create sections that have no fewer than 75 schools and no more than 300. The Southern Section, the state’s largest, has 489 schools. The Oakland Section is the smallest with six schools.

All three plans would eliminate the three city sections: Oakland, San Francisco (12 schools) and Los Angeles (49 schools).

The first option would create eight sections, including an Orange County section. Its main drawback is transportation; as distances and travel time could be increased in some areas.

“When you look at a map you don’t know if there are mountains in the way,” Fleming said. “There are schools in the Central Valley that can’t get to the coast easily, so it’s not simple.”

The second option would create nine sections, including an Orange County section. Transportation problems would be decreased, but the Los Angeles/Coastal configuration would have 321 schools. The next largest section would have 161 schools.

A third option would be more drastic, with the state divided into four regions. Orange County schools would be in a region with schools from San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial counties.

Each region would be divided into conferences, headed by an assistant commissioner. The assistant commissioners would work under a regional commissioner.

The reconfiguration, which will be phased in and is expected to be completed by the year 2000, would create a centralized governing system, with a Federated Council and State CIF assuming greater authority than they currently have.

“Each area would have control over its own destiny,” Fleming said.

Several Orange County officials said they are against the four-region plan.

“There is a lot of talk about the State CIF having more influence,” said Ed Seal, superintendent of the Brea-Olinda Unified School District. “There’s pros and cons to that. It would give the state more consistency, but take away some of the individual creativeness.”

Seal said county officials will continue to develop their own section, with a target date of the 1995-96 school year.

The committee created to develop a section presented a rough draft to principals and superintendents in December. The plan calls for dues of 29 cents per student. The Southern Section charges 23 cents.

The plan also includes $100,000 in corporate support the first year. Seal said no corporations have been approached because county officials agreed to wait until the CIF had secured its corporate financing.

The county section would have weighted voting. Schools that fielded 12 or more sports would have two votes. Schools that fielded fewer than 12 would have one.

Seal said an Orange County section proposal would be presented to the State Federated Council at the May meeting. A follow-up presentation would be made at the October meeting. If there are no problems, the plan would then be taken to the State Section Relations Committee for approval.

Seal said if the State CIF adopts a reconfiguration plan that included an Orange County Section, county officials would push back their start-up date to 1996. But if a state plan is adopted that doesn’t include an Orange County section, a county official who asked not to be identified said the county might secede from the State CIF.

“I’d rather not talk about that,” Seal said. “I don’t want it to look like we’re holding a gun to anyone’s head. It’s more prudent to cross that bridge when we come to it.”