LO, Sobrato move to BVAL has GHS, Hollister looking for a new
league
n By Jim Johnson Staff Writer
Morgan Hill – If this is 2005, it must be the Tri-County Athletic League. Or is it?
For the third time in the past three years, area high school teams are in the process of shuffling from one league to another. In 2002, Live Oak, Gilroy and Hollister moved from the Monterey Bay League to the TCAL, and now they’re all on the move again, along with newcomers Sobrato and Anzar. It’s enough to leave anyone a little confused.
At the next meeting of the Central Coast Section’s Board of Managers, the transfer of Live Oak and Sobrato from the Southern Conference (which includes the TCAL and three other leagues) to the Central Conference (which includes the San Jose-based Blossom Valley Athletic League) will be finalized. The conference switch is a required precursor to the two schools’ anticipated move to the BVAL in 2006-07.
The CCS Board of Managers meet Thursday, Jan. 27 at 9am at the East Side Union High School District headquarters in San Jose.
Once Live Oak and Sobrato have left for the BVAL, the TCAL will be reduced to just five teams – Gilroy, Hollister, Salinas, North Salinas and Palma/Notre Dame. That’s generally regarded as too small for competitive purposes, and Southern Conference officials are already working out ways to realign their leagues to accommodate the new circumstances.
Why switch to the BVAL?
Live Oak and Sobrato explain the move as a way to join a so-called “equity” or “power” league, which is divided into divisions by sport based on enrollment, program success, event attendance and, in some cases, geography.
Those two schools’ officials believe they will better be able to compete in a league that includes smaller-sized schools, as opposed to the larger schools in the TCAL.
At one time, Live Oak was among the largest schools in the area. But regional population shifts and the inauguration of Morgan Hill’s second high school – Sobrato – have left Live Oak anticipating a student body in the 1,200 to 1,300 range within the next few years.
That is dwarfed by the size of TCAL rivals such as Gilroy (2,600), Hollister (2,900) and Salinas (2,600). In most sports, a larger student body offers a competitive advantage based on a larger student-athlete pool to choose from.
“Our enrollment is going to be going down pretty rapidly, and the (BVAL’s) power league structure will allow us to compete against schools our size,” Live Oak Athletic Director Mark Cummins said.
“Personally, I like the tiering structure because we will not only play teams from schools our same size but also teams that we can compete with on the same level,” Sobrato AD Dennis Martin said.
In addition, equity leagues evaluate their divisions every year and teams can switch divisions, subject to official approval, on an annual basis. By contrast, traditional leagues such as the TCAL can only be realigned once every four years, according to CCS guidelines.
Both ADs said better access to afternoon games for Morgan Hill-area parents, many of whom work in San Jose, along with decreased travel costs and less time out of class were also key factors in the decision to move north. They pointed out that a trip to San Jose is quicker, especially with a widened Highway 101, than one to Salinas, where half the TCAL teams are located.
Martin said Sobrato, which will join the TCAL for a single varsity season in 2005-06, had always planned to move to the BVAL since Live Oak began considering such a move a few years ago.
Cummins said Live Oak will attempt to hang on to its traditional rivalries with Gilroy and Hollister, which have been built up over years of playing in the same leagues, by scheduling non-league games.
“We’d like to keep those rivalries going,” he said.
Decades ago, Live Oak competed in the Santa Teresa Athletic League, a precursor to the BVAL, as did Gilroy before both moved to the MBL.
After initial resistance, BVAL officials finally agreed to incorporate Live Oak and Sobrato into their league and the transfer will be finalized in May if there are no objections or appeals. BVAL officials had initially asked Live Oak school officials if they were interested in joining the league a few years ago when it looked like they might lose a school or two. But the BVAL schools stayed put and so did Live Oak in the TCAL.
That was then.
“(The BVAL) is the logical place for them to go and it’s the only place that has been talked about for them to go,” CCS Commissioner Nancy Lazenby-Blaser said. “I can’t see any opposition (to the move).”
Adding the Morgan Hill teams will give the BVAL 24 teams, which will be divided into three eight-team divisions by sport.
What happens to TCAL?
Ironically, the exodus of Live Oak and Sobrato in search of an equity league may be just the impetus for creating one in the Southern Conference.
According to conference officials, a realignment committee has already been convened to consider various alternatives.
One of those is forming a kind of “equity” conference, with all 32 teams in four leagues – the TCAL, MBL, Mission Trail Athletic League (which includes Anzar) and Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League – going into a single pot, then divided up into leagues by sport based on the usual factors – enrollment, program success, event attendance and geography.
Other options include keeping traditional leagues and adding a team or teams to the existing TCAL, probably a Salinas-area team such as Alisal or Alvarez, or combining the TCAL and the MBL into one league and creating two divisions based on the “equity” structure.
Adding another layer of complexity to the realignment process are league transfer requests by North Salinas, which wants to move from the TCAL to the MBL due to shrinking enrollment that makes it the smallest school in the Salinas area, and current MBL teams Monte Vista Christian and Pajaro Valley, both of whom are located in Santa Cruz County and want to move to the SCCAL.
The realignment committee is scheduled to meet this Monday to discuss the options and will accept final proposals on Feb. 17. The final decision on realignment is scheduled for May, provided there are no objections or appeals.
Both Gilroy AD Jack Daley and Hollister AD Tod Thatcher both say they are in favor of an equity conference structure.
Daley said he believes the equity league structure would allow more Mustang sports teams the opportunity to compete on an equal footing with other schools’ programs, and increase their chances to win league titles and qualify for postseason play.
“That’s the one I personally would support,” Daley said. “If you have programs on the rise, you can go up and compete with the best teams, and if you have a team that’s struggling you don’t have to be at the bottom of the league every year.”
Thatcher, who worked at BVAL schools Oak Grove and Andrew Hill before arriving in Hollister, said the equity league structure worked fine in San Jose and believes it could in the Southern Conference, too.
“We’re in favor of the super league structure,” Thatcher said. “It makes for more equitable competition. What’s nice about it is (leagues) can be re-evaluated every year. Regardless, things will probably stay about the same. We’ll still be playing a lot of TCAL schools.”
Both Gilroy and Hollister have sports programs that experience a range of success. For instance, the Mustang and Haybaler football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track and wrestling teams are usually among the area’s best, while other sports, like field hockey, tennis and volleyball, are more inconsistent year-to-year. An equity league’s annual review process would be able to properly match up those programs with other similar programs from other Southern Conference schools.
Some of the concerns being expressed about the equity league structure include increased travel costs and time because of the distances between some Southern Conference teams (such as King City and Gonzales to the south and San Lorenzo Valley and Scotts Valley to the north), and the loss of traditional rivalries.
But both Thatcher and Daley said they believe that their schools would be placed in leagues based as much on geographic realities as on anything else, and that rivalries can be perpetuated through non-league scheduling.
“A lot of teams say they don’t want to travel all the way to King City but then they schedule them for non-league, so it’s really a moot point,” Thatcher said. “I’m sure we’ll try to minimize long trips.”
“Like Hollister, we’re kind of in a no-man’s land between San Jose and Salinas,” Daley said. “We have to travel to compete.”
Daley said he doesn’t want to see the long-standing intra-league rivalry between Gilroy and Live Oak end but admitted he understands why the Acorns have to go. After all, the Gilroy AD said, Gilroy may be in a similar situation – dealing with the effects of a dwindling enrollment – in a few years when the city’s proposed new high school is built.
“We’ll probably be struggling with the same issues as Live Oak and Sobrato,” he said.
North Salinas AD Jean Ashen, a veteran school administrator, said there has historically been plenty of resistance to the equity league structure but that this time around there may be an opportunity to win converts.
“Our area has been so entrenched against realignment for a number of reasons,” Ashen said, “but the window has cracked a little and there’s a chance now.”
