Joe T.
Kick it!
The calmest guy I spoke to this week was “His Arroyo Baldness” Jim Singiser. While he’s not thrilled with the pending shifts coming to the football divisions it was interesting to hear the guy, who is capable of getting so hot at times you can fry an egg on the back of his neck, keep his cool.
“I’m not going to point fingers or accuse people,” he said while fixing a sprinkler in his backyard. “CIF’s Glenn Martinez has a tough job and whatever he does someone is not going to be happy.”
But he was still Jim Singiser.
“Moving the Rio Hondo League up into the Southeast wouldn’t be fair,” he said his tone changing. “But bringing the Alpha in to compete with Monrovia?”
When Jim Healy was still doing his show back in the day he would play a clip that said; “It’s all Zola Budd’s fault!”
(Budd was the South African runner who got tangled up with then American sweetheart Mary Decker, costing Decker a shot at gold in the 1984 Olympics.)
In this case it’s all Monrovia’s fault! If they don’t win back to back titles and participate in four consecutive semifinal games, then the rest of the Mid-Valley Division wouldn’t be staring at the business end of Sierra Canyon football.
I understand enrollment issues and that there are other sports to consider, but really…lets be honest. If a sport doesn’t pay for itself then it is essentially living off football. So every move, and yes moves have to be made, should be done with consideration to football first.
The enrollment argument doesn’t always wash. Just because school has a larger enrollment the demographics of that enrollment often is made up of groups that just won’t play football.
With that said, maybe the Rio Hondo should have been moved up into the Southeast.
Obviously Monrovia is ready to compete with anybody on the planet right now, and even though the rest of the league has been down we’ve seen movement. Things are happening at South Pas and San Marino. La Canada made a great hire. So look at the rest of the Southeast Division.
El Rancho, Pioneer, Whittier? Are they far and away better than the rest of the RHL? Hoover, Glendale? And it’s only Brandon Cox that keeps Pasadena a notch above a Rio Hondo League school.
Have you seen Artesia and Glenn? Rowland didn’t exactly tear it up last year and has recent as 2010 Los Altos was winless.
Would moving the Rio Hondo into the Southeast really been that much of a punishment considering some of the schools in the division?
Again, I understand Monrovia is at another level.
“Instead of dealing with just one school, Monrovia,” says La Puente HC Brandon Rohrer. “They moved three leagues instead. It just doesn’t make sense.”
The argument of moving the Montview to the Northwest, along with the Olympic League, was to bring relief. In the last two years the Montview has one playoff win. The Mission Valley League two.
“If CIF wanted to bring competitive equity why are they moving us with the Olympic? The Olympic has seven playoff wins in the last two years,” says Rohrer. “How come we are not staying with the Mission Valley League with only two playoff wins? The Mission Valley is most like us in competition, enrollment, demographics why is the Montview being separated from the MVL?”
The Montview currently has eight schools. In the old Mid-Valley set up a fourth place team from the league would qualify for the playoffs.
“For us it would cost three thousand dollars in transportation to go play a playoff game in Ventura Country,” said Rohrer. “With all the economic issues going on and talk on our district of dropping a game from the non-league schedule because of cost factors, how are we supposed to go to our district and say we need three grand to get to a playoff game?”
Rohrer pointed out to Mid Valley Sports on Tuesday night that some school districts have the final say in approving playoff games. He argued what happens if the district decides it doesn’t have the money to spend.
“We liked the local feel of the Mid-Valley,” said Maranatha HC Pete Karavedas. “We liked the local rivalries, but we accept the challenge to move up. I believe this is the third time in the last six years Maranatha has been moved up. We did really enjoy our time in the Mid-Valley.”
“There’s a lot going on,” said Duarte HC Jason Martin. “But we’re going to focus on playing one game at a time and play whoever is in front of us.”
The Mission Valley League will make its appeal on April 4th. The initial MVL appeal was to leave the rest of the division alone.
“Because we knew CIF wanted to get away from six league divisions, we wanted to at least keep the San Gabriel Valley schools together,” said Singiser. The proposal was to let the Olympic go to the Northwest, while the Rio Hondo, Almont, Valle Vista, Montview, and MVL stayed together. “And have them move the one non-geographic league. Now I’m not sure what we’ll do as a league.”
“I think it was fine the way it was,” said San Gabriel HC Jude Oliva as the Almont League prepares to make its own appeal very soon. “There was nothing wrong with it. I like the local environment, I hate to see us get away from that. It kind of seems they are looking for competition for Monrovia, but re-leaguing comes next year so I think they are jumping the gun a bit.”
Yes, this will be continued.
The Dude abides…
473
Proverbs 4:20-27
Contact Joe at joe@midvalleysports.com
Follow him on Twitter at @joet13b
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