Blog Post: What will the Marmonte League look like in 2014 and Wiill Agoura Football Still be Part of it?

In future blogs, we will see quotes from other coaches in the Marmonte League (now former coaches, actually), never before seen from the off-season of 2009 just as the decision was being made to add St. Bonaventure and Oaks Christian into the league for football.

In the last blog, Agoura coach Charlie Wegher was quoted as saying the addition of those two schools, added to a Westlake program that has been soaring the past three years as well, wasn't suitable for most of the public schools in the league.

However, other coaches (as well as Wegher) foresaw that the new 10-team league wouldn't be beneficial to their schools, and in fairness to Wegher, some of those interviews, never published before - although some of the sentiments  may have been - will be available here soon.

In the meantime, two years into the four-year commitment, there already was a significant change this coming season as the league was split into two. That move provides relief for the public schools as they will schedule more non-league games against teams of their choosing.

But two years from now, the discussion will be about new league alignments or new league affiliations as the Marmonte League will no longer look the same.

"There's been a lot of discussion about that," Wegher said. "Obviously, most of the league and the teams around here do not want to be involved with those three teams that we're talking about because they're operating on a different paradigm."

The three schools Wegher is talking about are St. Bonaventure, Oaks Christian and Westlake.

"I think the rest of us would like to play other schools that we could match up well with," Wegher said. "Schools with just local kids in your attendance area. When you have to play [schools] with attendance areas that are huge, they're going to be pretty good."

St. Bonaventure and Oaks Christian are private schools and thus their students can live farther away from the school without breaking any rules. Westlake, a public school, does have to conform to stricter attendance-area rules but has gotten many talented football players as the result of interdistrict transfers, which isn't against the rules either.

While it's two years away, Wegher said he expects that there will be an attempt to make sure the new league in which Agoura High plays will have at least six teams in order to guarantee three playoff spots. A five-team league would only have two definite spots, he said. He added that each school will have to first serve its own interests.

"It's hard because everybody is going to do what's best for their own school," Wegher said. "And so there's going to be some schools that probably aren't happy with what evolves. But I don't see it being the old Marmonte League.

"And we could even be involved with teams in the Tri-Valley League or the Pacific View League, or whatever," he added. "But we're just working on trying to get in a situation where we can compete week to week."