O.C. Catholic Schools Out of Public Leagues

The Southern Section Council voted Tuesday to remove Mater Dei, Rosary, Santa Margarita and Servite high schools from the county’s public athletic leagues and place them in an all-Catholic school league beginning with the 1999-2000 school year.

The council, by a 55-12 vote with two abstentions and three absences, approved a constitutional amendment allowing the section to invoke “special circumstances” in regards to area placement of schools. A two-thirds majority of the section’s 72 leagues--or 48 votes--was needed to pass the amendment.

After that, a simple majority vote of the council was all that was required in each case to remove six Catholic schools from their public leagues. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of removal in all six cases. La Verne Damien and Glendora St. Lucy’s were voted out of the Baseline League.

Santa Margarita Principal Merritt Hemenway, who had strongly opposed all attempts to remove his school from the public leagues, said he planned to appeal Tuesday’s decision to the CIF state office in San Raphael, but backtracked a little from earlier statements that he would take his school’s case to court.

“I don’t know if it should go that far,” Hemenway said Tuesday. “But we should keep all our options open.”

Representatives from the county’s 10 leagues voted 8-1 in January to maintain the leagues as they’ve been since the last realignment (1994) for the 1998-99 school year in anticipation of Tuesday’s actions.

Orange County principals, who have been trying to realign their 10 athletic leagues for the last 14 months, could barely contain their joy after Tuesday’s votes.

“What a powerful message to send,” said Mark Cunningham, athletic director at University High. “And this didn’t come just from Orange County but from the Southern Section.”

Said Corona del Mar Principal Don Martin: “I think this is going to take the Orange County releaguing process in a positive direction. . . . Was this the only way to do it? I honestly don’t see any other way. We’ve been struggling with releaguing ever since the private schools were allowed into the public school leagues.”

Hemenway said he understood the Diocese of Orange could force Santa Margarita to comply with the council’s decision, but he feared Tuesday’s action could cause some of his students to forgo athletics completely.

“Some kids now travel 20 miles to come here to school,” Hemenway said. “I’m not sure they would want to go another 40 or more miles to a sporting event.”

Although Hemenway said he had been warned “two months ago by [Catholic Athletic Assn, representative] Father Ralph Gallagher” to expect Tuesday’s voting results, he still appeared devastated by the margin of the constitutional amendment vote.

“I had hoped it would be closer,” Hemenway said. “I guess we’ll have to regroup . . . and buy a bus.”

In other action Tuesday, the council voted to end the two-year experiment of regionalizing the playoffs and will return to matching playoff opponents by competitive equity rather than geography.