Retiring CIF Commissioner Rob Wigod continues to try to improve high school athletics

After four decades in education — and more than half of that time spent with the CIF Southern Section — Rob Wigod, the section’s commissioner of athletics, announced earlier this month that this year will be his last in the position.

Wigod, who grew up in Long Beach and coached baseball at Los Alamitos High School prior to going to work as an administrator with the CIF, has headed the state’s largest section since Aug. 2, 2011.

During his time as commissioner, Wigod said there was no doubt in his mind what the biggest challenge of his tenure was: the coronavirus pandemic. The restoration effort to bring back high school sports, including the section and state playoffs, “energized” him, he said.

“I started this journey a long time ago as a high school teacher and coach,” Wigod said. “… I would never have thought of walking away and leaving a brand-new commissioner with having to try to pick up these pieces. It was very important to me that we were able to reestablish.”

Wigod joined the CIF as an assistant commissioner on Sept. 1, 2000. He plans to step down on Aug. 1, 2023, at which time he will be retiring with the third-longest service time as the CIF commissioner.

Good things come in threes, as the proverbial saying goes. That number applies to the number of times the section has been able to cover the dues of its member schools with Wigod at the helm.

CIF Southern Section Commissioner Rob Wigod talks about his upcoming retirement as the commissioner of athletics for the section on Wednesday.

(Raul Roa )

“That’s been done three times under the commissioner’s tenure, but it was never done in the previous 100 years of this organization that I know of,” Thom Simmons, assistant commissioner of the CIF, said. “During Rob’s 11 years as commissioner, we’ve refunded the dues to our schools three times.”

Championship revenue accounts for close to 70% of the section’s budget, said Wigod, who added that the CIF also secured a grant from the California Department of Education. In forgiving member schools’ dues for this year and last year, Wigod said section schools saved an estimated $1.5 million combined.

The commissioner also expressed pride in the growth of girls’ sports, the implementation of a playoff system centered around competitive equity and the section’s presence on social media.

Wigod noted the girls’ wrestling postseason is now on par with boys’ wrestling. Boys’ and girls’ lacrosse championships were recently brought into the fold, as well as traditional competitive cheer championships.

“Our girls’ beach volleyball championships are going to be coming up for the first time this year,” Wigod added. “Right now, next month, there’s a proposal to vote on girls’ flag football as a CIF-approved sport to start in the fall of 2023.”

The competitive equity playoffs have been predicated on an effort to utilize the most recent data to drive divisional placement for the playoffs.

CIF Southern Section Commissioner Rob Wigod at the CIF office in Los Alamitos on Wednesday.

(Raul Roa )

“We want to get to the point where we could actually at the end of the … current regular season, like we do in football, that we would be able to do the divisions at the end of the season,” Wigod said. “Right now, the challenge to do that is to get every score of every game from every school.”

Combining the top divisions in regular season polls and the formation of open divisions have served as a start in implementing exclusively the current season’s results to produce playoff brackets.

While gathering complete data remains a work in progress, Wigod said the model of examining teams’ performance from the most recent two seasons is still an improvement over the former approach, which placed teams in playoff brackets based off their league.

“I would want to be known as someone who was never afraid to try ways that we can do better,” Wigod said. “I really believed that the entire time I’ve been here. I don’t think we’re ever done with the work that we do in terms of trying to make this better.”

The section is also working to hold some of its championships in major venues. The CIF will hold a football title game at the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1944, and Wigod said the section is also working toward securing a major venue for its basketball finals.

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