Santa Margarita Appeal of Move Denied by CIF

A five-person CIF appeals panel meeting last week in Sacramento rejected a bid by Santa Margarita High officials to avoid placement in a private-school sports league.

Santa Margarita appealed a Southern Section decision to move it into a private-school league, along with Mater Dei, Rosary and Servite, starting with the 1999-2000 school year.

The main objection raised by the school, located in South Orange County, was travel time and expense.

“There were certain criteria our decision was based on,” said panel chairman Bob Wallace, superintendent of the Escalon Union School District near Stockton. “[Geography] was something we looked at, but one of the points was, is this a reasonable decision that responsible people would make?

“There were two underlying factors. In 1989, Father [Michael] Harris [then the principal of Santa Margarita] wrote a letter to the Southern Section requesting admission into a [public school] league. At the time, it was rejected. Then the father requested it be done on a trial basis. The second time he requested it, [the section] complied.”

In the fall of 1992, Santa Margarita was placed in the Sea View League. Since then, the Eagles have won 27 league titles.

“There was a six-year period during which there was this trial basis,” Wallace said. “And [section officials] decided that because of competitive domination, it wasn’t working.”

Santa Margarita boys’ Athletic Director Rich Schaaf wasn’t pleased with the results.

“The way people [on the panel] look at it, there are a lot of schools out in the desert who drive a long way to compete,” Schaaf said, “but the difference is, they’re not passing dozens of schools they could compete with.”