State Title Games Face Many Hurdles

A proposal for state football bowl games drew mixed response Thursday during the Southern Section executive committee meeting in Long Beach, and with just over three months remaining before league representatives vote on the proposal, it remains unclear which direction the state’s largest section is leaning.

Dr. Ken Gunn, principal at Walnut High, presented the proposal as a discussion-only item, pleading with representatives from most of the section’s 83 leagues to give the two-year plan a try, but others expressed concerns over its financial feasibility.

The proposal calls for state championship games in three enrollment-based divisions in 2006 and ’07. Under the current proposal, all profits from the games -- including gate receipts, sponsorships and broadcast rights fees -- would go directly to the California Interscholastic Federation and be funneled back to member schools via educational programs.

The six participating schools would be reimbursed for travel expenses but would not directly share in any of the profits. Moore League representative Shawn Ashley, the principal at reigning Division I champion Long Beach Poly, said football teams should not “be used as fund-raisers for the CIF.”

Gunn, however, said allowing participating schools to share the profits could create a rich-get-richer scenario.

“Nobody wants to see [Concord] De La Salle making a few thousand dollars every year and everybody else gets nothing,” he said. “That’s not going to fly statewide.”

Adding a 15th game to a team’s schedule, paying coaches for an extra week of work and the absence of a specific number of players, coaches, band members and cheerleaders allowed to travel with each team are also among Ashley’s concerns.

“To ask this body to approve something that we don’t even know what it’s going to cost, the Moore League does not think that is reasonable,” Ashley said. “Now is the time for us to understand exactly what you are talking about instead of asking us to blindly accept what you are proposing. For those reasons, the Moore League cannot back it and we ask that other schools not back it.”

Gunn acknowledged that the proposal could be amended to address such issues but added that was unlikely because figuring exact costs would be difficult without a committee to determine “fair and reasonable” personnel allowances.

“This is a two-year pilot,” he said. “Is it perfect? No. But if those things can’t be solved, it will not go forward after two years.”

Leagues have until the April 28 council meeting to decide if they will support the proposal. It could go before the CIF’s Federated Council as soon as May 6. The City Section will discuss the proposal during its council meeting Monday, Assistant Commissioner Jeff Halpern said.

In another controversial idea discussed Thursday, Southern Section Commissioner Jim Staunton unveiled two possible scenarios for football playoff restructuring to take effect for the 2006 season.

In the first scenario, the number of divisions would be cut from 13 to 10, and each division would consist of six leagues. In the second, there would be six divisions of 8-10 leagues. Playoffs would consist of 32-team brackets and each team would be guaranteed two games as first-round losers move into a consolation bracket.

“They’re just ideas we’re floating,” Staunton said.

“Trying to stimulate more interest, create better matchups and draw bigger crowds.”

The South Coast League presented a proposal that would require students transferring under the Allen Bill to be declared ineligible for athletic competition unless cleared through regular eligibility procedures.

The Allen Bill allows a student to transfer into any school district where a parent’s place of employment is located. The intent of the law is to aid parents of elementary school children, but Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley Principal Tom Ressler said the rule could easily be abused for athletic transfers.

“In one instance, a parent was paid to chaperon at a school dance,” he said. “And that qualified for an Allen Bill transfer.”

Items passed during the meeting included a proposal to add up to 30 additional runners in the state cross-country championships and a proposal to ask the state for a one-year waiver in adding lacrosse as an official sport. The state has mandated that lacrosse become a sanctioned sport this spring.