City Section football blitzed by budget issues
Tradition has been squeezed out by budget belt tightening in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Two football traditions — opening night on the Friday of the first full week of September and playing second-round playoff games the night before Thanksgiving — will end in the fall because of district-mandated work furlough days.
“It’s always an adventure,” Michael Immken, Chatsworth High’s athletic director, said of the LAUSD.
City Section schools can’t play host to games Sept. 10 because campuses will be closed, though teams are allowed to play games if they are not held at LAUSD fields. For example, defending City champion Crenshaw is playing that night at Norco High.
Adding to the uncertainty is that some schools can’t play the night before, either, because Sept. 9 is the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.
“It’s just disconcerting to get a schedule together,” said Dorsey Coach Paul Knox, whose team was scheduled to play host to Woodland Hills Taft on Sept. 10. “It’s making us scramble.”
The decision to close Nov. 24 to games was greeted as “a longtime coming” by Woodland Hills El Camino Real Coach Kevin Williams, who said, “We should have been doing it the same way as the Southern Section.”
Instead of playing on the day before Thanksgiving, City teams will now play Friday or Saturday — even though district administrators have in the past balked at working those days after the holiday.
Also Monday, the City Section announced it has finalized plans to begin charging athletes a one-time $24 transportation fee starting in September to make up for a $650,000 cut in transportation funding. Schools can raise money to pay for the student fees, City Section Commissioner Barbara Fiege said.
Monday was the final City Section Interscholastic Athletic Committee meeting of the school year, and Eagle Rock Principal Sal Velasco was elected as City Section president, replacing Heather Daims, who will become president of the California Interscholastic Federation.
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