Cleaning Out His Locker

After 23 years as an administrator with the CIF Southern Section, the last six as commissioner, Dean Crowley is retiring at the end of the school year. A 1952 graduate of Alhambra High, Crowley, 64, began his career as a junior high school coach. He later was vice principal at Cerritos Gahr High, where he oversaw the athletic program. Crowley also was a high school and college football and basketball referee and a supervisor of officials for several organizations. Times staff writer Paul McLeod, who has followed Crowley’s career for 25 years, had a conversation with the outgoing commissioner recently.

What was the most satisfying moment of your career:

Getting hired here 23 years ago was a big highlight. After acting as commissioner for a year, it was most satisfying when the executive committee named me commissioner in 1994.

What were your least favorite moments?

I didn’t like dealing with some of the eligibility issues. We had a football team from Huntington Beach in the early 1990s and we had to go to the court of appeals to sustain our [playoff eligibility] rules. The other one that really bothered me was a couple of years ago when we had a black football player strike the [white] official. We had never experienced anything like that before and there were racial implications and overtones.

The time leading up to your hiring had been a controversial period for the section because your predecessor [Stan Thomas] was fired for financial irregularities.

It was a dark time. But out of that we developed strong financial controls and guidelines. When I came in as commissioner we had a deficit of $178,000 and now for the first time in the history of the organization we have $1 million in reserves.

How much did the rise in ticket prices during your tenure help build the reserves?

We haven’t kicked up ticket prices too much. We haven’t raised children’s tickets for a long time. We have raised them on seats at our premium events at Anaheim Stadium or the Pond. But the bottom line is that we cannot continue to raise ticket prices or we are going to price the general public right out of wanting to come.

What’s going to happen to that reserve?

I’d like the executive council to look at returning a portion of the reserve to the schools, but in my opinion, we need some reserves to take care of us in case we have a bad situation in football. About 30% of our $1.6-million budget is based on the football playoffs. If we had a real rainy season and poor attendance, that could cost us dearly. Rather than ask all the schools to divvy up more money if that happened, we can use the reserves.

We did spend some of our reserves on computers for the office recently and I made a recommendation a year ago to explore the idea of buying a building for new offices. We’re renting the building we’re in now and we’ve outgrown it. I can’t get my entire executive committee into our conference room and there’s no place to add on. If we buy a building, that’s an investment for the future.

What about all the sponsors the section has signed deals with over the years to provide funds?

We need to continue to involve the corporate community, however, they should be channeled to [the local school level]. I hope the state or section never gets involved again with title sponsors, like “Reebok Shoes Championships.” These are high school CIF championships. Nothing else. Nothing more. Let the corporate sponsors hang their banners and do their advertising in the communities. But I have a major problem with putting a title on a high school championship.

Any regrets, or things you’re leaving behind that you couldn’t get done?

We need to take a good look at releaguing. When I came on board, we had 460 schools, now we have 516, a 12% increase. But we had 52 leagues. Now we’re at 73, a 40% gain there. Remember the old days when we had three and four playoff divisions? Those were neat. Now we average between five and 12 divisions per sport. I don’t have a problem with that. We’re giving more kids exposure to playoff competition, but I think we still need to look at the value of geographic playoffs.

One of the things that has bothered me more than anything has been open enrollment. To some, athletics is not just a game anymore. We have this mentality that we have to win at all costs. This overemphasis on winning isn’t good for athletics in general. The open enrollment rule has contributed to that. We have so many transfers now and the ones I’m seeing are athletic transfers, and that’s not what our kids are in school for.

What would you like to see?

I’d like to go back to what we had in the past. If a youngster transfers without a bona fide change of residence, he/she would be restricted to lower-level play for a year. That would stop some of this movement that is just for athletic reasons. For a youngster to leave a school that has a good academic program after three years and transfer during a senior year just to play a new position, that is not what our high schools are about.

What are some of the critical issues facing high school sports?

I’m really concerned about the movement of these “high-profile” athletes, particularly in the sport of basketball. They’re being moved about by high-profile club coaches. They’re moving them to what they feel are the winning programs. It doesn’t matter where these high-profile kids play, they’re going to get recognition. I really believe that the participants in our public schools should be kids that represent the communities they live in.

We’ve got to face up to the fact that we have sportsmanship problems. Parents today don’t want to accept losses. We had a situation this year where one of our football teams was undefeated and went into a championship and lost by a point or two. The coach took so much verbal abuse after the game. The parents just berated this guy. They weren’t proud of the fact that he had such a great season. We’re also seeing more and more assaults by parents and fans on officials. Game officials associations have come to us to negotiate the last three years and each time they didn’t ask for more money. What they have asked us for is better game management and safety. There’s a group working nationally on legislation to deal with this.

What issues will the new commissioner deal with?

The last three to five years, the organization has been too permissive and has been concerned about litigation rather than strong rules.

Another thing to address is tighter control on our courtesy cards [for free admittance to section events]. I think they are being abused in some cases. Too many people who are not supposed to have them are getting them and are getting in free to events. I had a parent call me and he was upset that he didn’t get into the Nike Extravaganza basketball event. They wouldn’t honor the courtesy card. There was no reason for him to have it, so, I asked him where he got it and he told me he got it from his son’s school principal. I called the school and told them this is not what courtesy cards are supposed to be used for.

With technology, we need to constantly train our staff on how to use it.

As far as legislation, the outside competition rule that says that during the high school season a youngster can’t play on another team needs revision. We’re one of the few states that has that rule. To me, if a youngster plays on a high school basketball team during the week and on Sunday wants to play in a church league and the high school coach doesn’t care and the parents don’t care, why not?

Also, our section coaches can only be involved with kids during the school season or in the summer. Other sections in the state allow the high school volleyball coach, for instance, to work with his kids all year-round. This puts us at a disadvantage in certain state championships like basketball, where, in all honesty, we need to have our teachers/coaches allowed to work with kids year-round, instead of some of these outside forces and influences like club and travel coaches who, for their own good, are influencing kids to transfer.

Finally, we have to make sure that the general public, and even some of our board members and superintendents, know what the CIF is all about. We don’t have an image problem. But we do have a communication problem. There’s a lack of understanding, particularly among parents, as to what we do.

There’s a lot of talk about adding sports.

We are getting a lot of pressure in that regard, but I don’t know where the funding is going to come from. We already host 24 sports, yet on the horizon are lacrosse, roller hockey, surfing, equestrian and I’ve just been told recently that there’s a senator up in Sacramento who wants to introduce legislation to have judo. We just cannot be everything to everybody.

Some say the section is too large. Do you see it dividing sometime?

It’s obvious the Southern Section is too large. But I don’t want to see it split up at this time. The state is addressing size issues now. It’s looking at the San Francisco and Oakland sections, which are much smaller, and looking at the relevance of those sections.

Will Orange County ever have an opportunity to create its own section?

An Orange County section would have to include more than just Orange County. You could go into Artesia-Cerritos areas and the Diamond Bar, Chino areas. That would be larger and make it more economically feasible. There was also talk for a while of an Inland Empire Section, but the state hasn’t addressed the geographic concerns that the Orange County group brought up when it wanted its own section several years ago.

Some say the luster of playing high school sports becomes secondary to playing for private club programs.

A lot of kids play sports year-round now. They just use the high school as a vehicle to participate. Part of the problem is that the NCAA has changed its recruiting period so that most of the prime recruiting goes on during the summer and that has helped the proliferation of club teams and elite summer camps. Our national office has been talking to the NCAA and I think the NCAA would like to get back to doing more of its recruiting during the high school season.

Also, in girls’ sports in many states, club programs were established long before girls were allowed to compete for their high schools, particularly in the sports of volleyball, swimming, tennis. Remember, our high school girls’ programs didn’t come along until the early 1970s.

So, if high school athletics aren’t important anymore, why play?

The beauty of the high school program is that we offer so many levels of competition. We take care of the needs of so many kids. I have to say, I was one of those kids. I was just inducted into the Alhambra High School Athletic Hall of Fame and I spent 10 times more time on the bench than I did playing. But it gave me a place to be on the team and got me interested in officiating and eventually got me into high school athletic administration. The bottom line is, it gives our kids a chance to be part of something. We provide a program for a lot of kids of just average ability. Kids with skill will always achieve.

Where do you see the section being in 10 years?

I don’t think you will see us increase office staff from the 14 people we now have. With technology we’re getting close to being where we need to be, to communicate with e-mail and use computers to make jobs easier.

What about 20 years?

I think it will have a different look to it as we know it today. For instance, the new state governor has said that we aren’t going to promote kids unless they’re ready. If we’re going to hold them back for educational reasons, we are going to have 19- and 20-year-olds still in high school. How are we going to deal with that? Are we going to let them play? We’re also going to have 16- and 17-year-old ninth graders. How are we going to handle them?

Also, we have to accommodate our growing immigrant population. Many of these kids start school late. We’re going to have to take a look at the rule that says that an athlete has only eight semesters of eligibility.

Finally, why not sanction club programs? If a student is playing for a club lacrosse team or a club roller hockey team that represents the school, why not give them a letter? Kids want to identify with their schools.