In City, Being Nominated Is Above All

The All-City nomination form was one of many sheets of paper, wedged between regular-season master schedules and playoff-seeding information.

Doug Magorien took the packet of papers, handed out at an early-season girls’ volleyball coaches meeting, and glanced at the nomination form. Then he put it aside.

Post-season nominations for outstanding players? Please. The regular-season had barely begun.

But it was Magorien’s failure to return that sheet of paper that cost a top City volleyball player a spot on the All-City team, released two weeks ago.

Magorien, the coach at Taft High, missed a deadline to nominate his players--via the form--for the All-City team.

Trisha Bratford, a 6-foot-1 senior outside hitter, was a sure shot to make the team. One of only a couple City Section players being wooed by Division I colleges, Bratford surpassed the 26-kill mark three times this season, a mark she would have broken many more times had Taft not swept so many opponents.

Bratford was the co-player of the year in the competitive West Valley League and has skills on offense superior to nearly every other player in the City Section.

But deadlines are deadlines, as Magorien found out.

If a player is not nominated by the due date, Dec. 3 this year, she cannot be discussed for post-season honors at a City Section girls’ volleyball committee meeting, which took place on Dec. 7.

Magorien, who was not at the meeting, was angry when Bratford’s name was not on the 15-player All-City team. Understandably so.

Sylmar Coach Bob Thomson, a member of the All-City selection committee, was stunned that only 21 nominees were submitted by coaches.

“I said at the meeting that I was frustrated,” Thomson said. “In my mind, some kids should have been nominated and should have been on the All-City team. Definitely, Bratford should have been a first-teamer.”

But rules are rules, Thomson said.

“We have a procedure in place and we have to stick with it,” Thomson said. “Other coaches got their nominees in on time and [Magorien] didn’t. To keep a player of that caliber off the team is a shame.”

Thomson pointed out that Magorien is not alone.

Fremont, which lost to Sylmar in the City quarterfinals, failed to submit names for All-City consideration.

In a more extreme case two years ago, Palisades won the City Championship but did not have players on the All-City team because Coach Dave Suarez missed the deadline for nominees.

Magorien erred by relying on a mid-season reminder that listed the due date for nominees.

Nobody received a reminder. There were none.

But the rigid ways of the selection committee were also erroneous.

A bending of the rules is necessary when obvious selections--such as Bratford or the Palisades players from two years ago--are omitted.