Releaguing is like planning a wedding reception.
You have to figure out who wants to sit with who. Who is going to be OK sitting with Aunt Hilda?
For the releaguing process that has just begun, Crean Lutheran is Aunt Hilda.
Starting with the 2018-19 school year, Crean Lutheran is either going to be in a league with Orange County public schools or it is going to be in the Trinity League.
Current league alignments are in place through the 2017-18 school year. For the next four-year releaguing cycle that begins with the 2018-19 school year, something called “area placement” is underway.
Schools are first placed into one of nine areas. Some of the areas are fairly geographical – all of the schools in the Orange County Area are O.C. schools except for St. John Bosco, which in a previous area placement process was approved to be moved to the Orange County Area so it could be in the Trinity League with Mater Dei, Servite, et al.
Some of O.C.’s smaller private schools are in the Small Schools Area so they can be in leagues with such schools that are not in O.C. Saddleback Valley Christian, for example, is in the Small Schools Area so it can be in the San Joaquin League that includes some non-O.C. schools.
Crean Lutheran, a private school in Irvine with an enrollment of 800, is currently in the Small Schools Area. It is in the Orange County Area for the upcoming releauguing process.
That means Crean Lutheran, barring any sort of appeal that can occur until mid-March, must be accepted into an Orange County league that has public schools in it. Or Crean Lutheran must be accepted into the Trinity League.
Public schools generally don’t want to be in a league with private schools. An exception is Calvary Chapel, which is the only private school in the otherwise all-public school Orange Coast League. Calvary Chapel is very good in wrestling, but otherwise is not seen as being as athletically ambitious as Crean Lutheran.
Crean Lutheran executive director Jeffrey Beavers was aware of anti-private school sentiment among the county’s public schools even before he began talking with O.C. public schools.
“There are some principal that say private schools should be in private-school leagues,” Beavers said Thursday.
“We’ve reached out to different leagues,” he added. “There’s not a lot of reception out there for us.”
While being in the Trinity League, Beavers said, “is not something we aspire to,” he understands that the Trinity League could wind up being Crean Lutherans’s destination.
“That’s one of the things that people quickly yell out from the back of the room – ‘they belong in the Trinity League!’” he said.
Crean Lutheran has been in the Academy League with other O.C. smaller private schools like St. Margarets’s and Brethren Christian, although there was no Academy League for football in 2016 after Sage Hill dropped out to play 8-man football.
Crean Lutheran does not have a specific league in mind for its future league home. Beavers and the school’s athletic director, Eric Olson, are working on three proposals of league alignments that Crean Lutheran would submit.
“Our goal is to meet the needs of our growing programs,” he said. “We have multiple levels of sports teams now that we didn’t have 10 years ago, so we’re trying to meet the needs of those levels.”
At releaguing meetings that will occur during the 2017-18 school year, O.C. schools will vote upon a plethora of proposals that will come from a variety of leagues. Releaguing is a long, difficult process. There never has been, and never will be, a league alignment model that wins unanimous support from county schools.
The Century Conference and Coast View Conference models are appealing to Crean Lutheran and to other schools. Conferences are made up of many schools, with school teams slotted into one of the conference’s two leagues. League membership varies from sport to sport – for example, in the Century Conference, Canyon is in the conference’s North Hills League for girls basketball but is in the Crestview League for boys basketball.
League assignment changes within conferences every two school years. Some schools find that flexibility appealing.
As for those three league-alignment proposals that Crean Lutheran would submit, Beavers said, “Competitive equity is our goal and geography, too. If we could stay in our immediate area, that would be great and would be the best fit.”
The league in Crean’s immediate area is the Pacific Coast League. That’s a “full” league now, with six schools in it. It looks like PCL member Corona del Mar might be open to moving to the Sunset League, where Corona del Mar would fit in well enough competitively and geographically. Of course, that would mean one of the current six Sunset League schools would have to move along … and we’re looking at you, Marina.
Woodbridge athletic director and football coach Rick Gibson, whose school is in the PCL, doubts the PCL schools would be keen to the idea of bringing in Crean Lutheran’s Saints.
“I don’t know if I’d say they’re not welcome,” Gibson said. “I would say that we would try to put them in another league.”
Of course, Marina would have to find a new league home, too. Golden West League members Loara and Orange might want to move along, so maybe Marina goes there … and maybe Crean, too?
Nick Canzone, athletic director at Golden West League member Segerstrom, said Crean has expressed interested in joining the Golden West.
“I don’t know if they’re the right fit for our league,” Canzone said. “It’s not something we would consider at this point.”
Trinity League coordinator Joel Hartmann, associate athletic director at Servite, said the Trinity League is aware that Crean Luthean might be joining the league and is keeping a “wait and see” posture on that subject.
All of this is remindful of what happened to JSerra 12 years ago. JSerra, still a newer school, had been in the Freelance Area and had successfully requested to be placed in the Orange County Area.
JSerra at first hoped it would be accepted into a league with O.C. public schools. Those schools circled the wagons and kept JSerra out. The Orange County releaguing process finished with JSerra being part of a new league made up of former Serra League teams; JSerra and Orange Lutheran replaced departing Bishop Amat of La Puente and Loyola of Los Angeles in this new league that would be called the Trinity League.
JSerra appealed. JSerra asked to be in the Trinity League for all sports except football, for which it wanted to continue playing a freelance schedule as it had in previous years.
The CIF-SS Executive Committee rejected this appeal. JSerra became a Trinity League member for all sports.
JSerra football was a disaster in the Trinity League for the first couple of years. The Lions forfeited all of their league games in 2006, their first Trinity League season; lost all of its ’07 Trinity games by an average margin of 52 points; and went winless in league again in ’08 when they scored 23 points over five league games.
Beavers was an administrator at Orange Lutheran back then, so he knows that story. He hopes that Crean Lutheran can find the right fit in Orange County.
Somebody better get ready for Aunt Hilda.
Contact the writer: sfryer@scng.com
