Missing class to travel to a game and long drives to play on foreign turf are part of the student athlete experience, but some Central Coast high schools say their teams spend too much time on the road to the detriment of player safety and morale. Those schools have applied for realignment from the CIF Southern Section to the Central Section, but parents at a recent informational meeting about the matter said the move is a bad one.
At issue for the coaches and athletic directors is the extensive travel to Southern California where most of the Southern Section teams are located. They say driving through the congested Los Angeles area highways takes a toll on players, especially when they have back-to-back games following long, weary hours on the road. The Southern Section also has a number of strong programs, meaning that many Central Coast teams don’t get to play against teams at their level of competitive ability. That often means heavy losses and subsequently major hits to team morale.
Athletic directors Greg Lanthier of Pioneer Valley High School, Kevin Barbarick of Righetti High School, and Brian Wallace of Santa Maria High School led the Oct. 10 informational meeting at Righetti accompanied by several coaches.
Lanthier said the move only affects where the teams will have to travel for playoffs, not for league play. They added that teams would get to play more league games at home.
Some parents in attendance suggested the move was about wins and losses, meaning that Central Coast schools were interested in winning more games by playing Central Section teams rather than the stiffer competition of the Southern Section teams. Lanthier said the proposed realignment isn’t about winning league championships, because some of the teams won’t be going to the playoffs anyway. The difference between Central Coast teams playing against the heavily stacked Southern Section teams, and re-leaguing and playing similarly matched teams in the Central Section is the difference between losing a game 18-0, 14-4 or 12-6, maybe even 10-8, Lanthier said.
“Is there value in it for the team that loses 25 to nothing? To me the bigger question is what’s the value to the team that beats you 25 to nothing,” he said.
Santa Maria High School girls’ volleyball coach Christine Regalado said that she sees the toll the losses have had on her girls. Many don’t want to come back to the team. Students who are exceptionally talented players don’t want to join the team because of its reputation for losses.
“We don’t have any confidence coming back; I’ve lost girls due to the fact, you know, they’re just tired of being at the bottom. After you lose so many times and you don’t get any satisfaction from being a part of something, you’re going to start to lose girls,” she said.
Playing evenly matched teams is something that is difficult currently even in league play, coaches said. For instance, Santa Maria High and Pioneer, two evenly matched teams, can’t compete because they are in different leagues. Being in the Southern Section they’d have to get approval from all the section members to re-league with no guarantee they would end up pleased with the results.
Santa Maria, Pioneer, and Righetti high schools are among the Central Coast schools that applied for the realignment. Of the 16 Central Coast schools, all but three, are included in the application. Those schools include Lompoc, Cabrillo, and Santa Ynez High Schools.
Dan Troup, Cabrillo High School athletic director, told the Sun his school didn’t support the realignment because they are happy in the Southern Section.
“That’s not for us,” he said of the realignment, “We don’t have a problem with the Southern Section.” He added that his school also didn’t want to make the drive to Central Section schools. He said the two-lane roads pose more travel risk than traveling to Southern California.
His concerns echoed parent sentiment at the meeting.
While coaches and athletic directors appealed to the parents in attendance about extensive travel, expensive lodging, and missed class time, parents had other concerns. Some parents argued that traveling two-lane roads to Central Section teams located in places like Clovis or Bakersfield wouldn’t be any safer or faster than traveling the four- and six-lane highways of Southern California. One parent said it takes just as many hours to travel to some of the Central Section schools, but the roads are more dangerous, especially in spring when tule fog rolls in.
Parent Mike Regan said that safety is a primary concern, and he sees no need for the realignment.
“A lot of parents don’t want their kids driving on these two-lane highways. You know it’s better to drive on those four-lane highways,” Regan said.
Still other parents expressed concern about whether their student would miss out on opportunities for recruitment should they be accepted into the Central Section versus the highly visible Southern Section. One parent suggested that representatives present their information in terms of explaining that the competition will be just as stiff in the Central Section as in the Southern.
The Southern Section does have a number of Division 1 teams. However, Lanthier said that many of the Central Coast teams wouldn’t face that competition because they won’t make it that far in play. He said most Central Coast schools are better matched to Central Section schools. He added that if a player is good, recruiters will find him or her.
Approval won’t take place until January, but the application included two provisions, according to Lanthier: that the schools could keep their autonomy and that they would waive the travel that would be required in their first year in the section.
Most parents in attendance weren’t happy with the presentation and questioned the transparency in the district’s actions in applying for realignment without first seeking input from parents. Only a handful of parents showed up, and many expressed concern that there weren’t enough parents who knew about the meeting. School board members in attendance suggested representatives hold another meeting to get more parent participation. However, there was no announcement of a second date by the meeting’s end.
Editor Shelly Cone can be reached at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 13-20, 2016.