All-Catholic Prep League Is on Drawing Board

An all-Catholic school league, which could include Mater Dei, Santa Margarita, Servite and Rosary, could become a reality within two years.

Mater Dei Principal Pat Murphy said Tuesday that plans to form four geographically based leagues comprising 16 Catholic schools from the Southern Section have been discussed by the schools involved.

One league, according to Murphy, would include Mater Dei, Santa Margarita, Servite/Rosary, Bellflower St. John Bosco and Lakewood St. Joseph.

But Murphy warns that the plan is “only being discussed” and there are concerns. Santa Margarita appears reluctant to join such a league, and some schools are leery of the travel involved.

“It might be good for Mater Dei and Servite but not for us,” said Richard Schaaf, athletic director at Santa Margarita. “We put so much emphasis on church and academics, to get kids [out of class early to travel to away games] is not practical.”

St. John Bosco Principal Bill Goodman says he cannot envision a league involving his school and Santa Margarita because of the travel time involved.

Being a part of a league with Mater Dei, however, might not be out of the question from a travel standpoint, Goodman said.

“But I think you have to go beyond the strength of the programs involved and look at travel,” he said.

Servite Athletic Director Larry Walker said his school is happy in the Golden West League, but added that there would be “interest” in the formation of another Catholic league. Servite was a member of the all-Catholic Angelus League, along with Mater Dei, until the league was disbanded after the 1991-92 school year.

But Father Robert Gallagher, principal at Santa Fe Springs St. Paul, which also played in the Angelus League, doesn’t expect his school will again.

“The Angelus League--the way it was in the past--will never be resurrected,” he said. “The travel is prohibitive.”

Murphy, however, said discussions of new all-Catholic leagues have been ongoing.

“We [at Mater Dei] have been behind this idea for some time,” he said. “It did not work out before. I hope in the two-year window we have that we could arrive at something like this.”

The “two-year window” refers to the section’s most recent proposal, which it announced Monday in hopes of clearing the way for passage of the league realignment proposal to be voted on by the section council at its meeting Oct. 21.

The addendum to the original realignment proposal, which was approved last spring, would prohibit Mater Dei and Santa Margarita from competing for league titles in 11 varsity sports for two years in their new leagues. (They could make the playoffs as at-large teams.) Mater Dei is moving from the South Coast to the Sunset, and Santa Margarita from the Sea View to the South Coast.

Brother William Carriere, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Orange, said Tuesday that, after the two-year experiment, Mater Dei and Santa Margarita could return to their current leagues if they so desired--a fact confirmed by section Commissioner Dean Crowley.

“At the end of two years, if we are unhappy with any part of the solution,” Carriere said, “we go back to where we were.”

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Under the most current realignment proposal, Marina will stay in the Sunset League at least through 1998-2000 and the Pacific Coast League will operate as a five-team league until Irvine’s Northwood High, which opens in 1999, begins varsity play in 2000. Northwood, the Irvine Unified School District’s fourth high school, will compete as an independent its first year.

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Times staff writer Lon Eubanks contributed to this story.