High School Athletic Divisions An Imperfect System

It’s not the Bowl Championship Series, but the California Interscholastic Federation has a difficult process trying to fit 196 high schools within divisions and conferences that are fair for everyone.

Director of Communications for the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Will DeBoard explained how the divisions and the leagues within the divisions are created.

“The way it goes is we form a realignment committee that consists of former administrators, athletic directors, basically members of our board who have been involved with our section for quite some time,” DeBoard said. “They gather information from each school like enrollment, location, also competitive equity, which means how well do they fair in their league? Are they winning everything? Are they not winning anything? Or are they kind of right in the middle?”

The CIF goes through realignment every four years.

“After two years if there is a school that got way better than their league or way worse we can look into making a change,” DeBoard said.

The CIF tries to get schools that are close to each other, that are of the same size within the same league to help with competition and transportation.

“You want schools to play in a league where they feel every school has a chance at winning,” DeBoard said. “That third year of realignment is when the realignment committee is gathering that information for the next realignment process, they basically have a big chart and a big graphic and they put together what they feel should be our leagues and that is then voted on by our board.”

Del Campo High School Athletic Director Gary Summerhays said in years past it didn’t seem like the realignment committee cared much about geography.

“We used to have to play Nevada Union in our league so we would have to travel to Placer to play them,” Summerhays said. “I shouldn’t complain because they had to travel to the Central Valley to play us all of the time rather then playing up in the foothill leagues.” 

Summerhays added it seemed like the committee took geography into account with the 2010 realignment cycle.

“Right now they have pretty good proximity and maybe the powers to be are trying to be more sensitive with gas prices and everything, too,” he said.

DeBoard said geography is even more of an issue now because school budgets are not what they used to be and transportation is tough because nobody wants to travel really far.

With realignment last year came about the new Capital Valley Conference that includes Fair Oaks schools Bella Vista and Del Campo.

Bella Vista girls basketball coach Gwyn Jackson said she’s not unhappy with how the CVC has turned out.

“Rio Linda is good competition, Christian Brothers is great, they got second in the league last year and Oakmont is showing up,” she said. “I hated to lose El Camino, they were a rival we had in girls basketball for a while but it is what it is.”

DeBoard said the CVC seemed to hold its own against other competition in its first year.

“As far as competitive equity goes, it’s tough to be in the same division as the SFL because that’s an extremely highly competitive athletic league,” he said. “It’s hard for those schools to compete with the schools from the SFL but CVC seems to have.”

Jackson said she is not sure why Saint Mary’s, always a powerhouse in girls basketball, is not a Division I program.

“They’re a small school so from an enrollment standpoint they’re probably a Division V or Division IV, Grant High School does the same thing,” Jackson said. “My question would be why aren’t they competing at Division I if they’re a nationally ranked program and have been for years?”

DeBoard said that is a valid point.

“This is a nationally ranked team that probably should be Division I but at the same time with Division I you have a lot of public schools out there,” he said. “All of a sudden a lot of our best programs are being placed into Division I and then they don’t have a chance of winning a section title. It’s kind of a fine-line.”

Basketball has a state championship so the divisions are set based on enrollment.

DeBoard said there are some schools that are always a challenge to find a home for.

“Nevada Union is a Division I school, that’s a large school that’s nowhere near any other school that’s close to a comparable size,” he said. “They’re in the Sierra Foothill League now and they seem to be a pretty decent fit there.”

Grant is another unique situation.

“They obviously have a very strong football program, they also probably don’t have the breath of programs as maybe a lot of other Division I schools,” DeBoard said.

The football realignment system is different because schools might not know what division they’re in until after their regular season is over.

The committee takes all of the playoff teams and then divides them by enrollment.

DeBoard said the realignment committee hopes it has found its solution for schools like Grant and Saint Mary’s with the creation of the continual success rule that will begin this school year.

If a school wins three section titles in a row, it will automatically get bumped up one more enrollment size.

“When a team is successful year after year you definitely have to keep an eye on them,” DeBoard said.

Jackson said she wasn’t sure why the committee aligned the divisions last year before the leagues.

DeBoard said he understands if you have been coaching somewhere for 20 years and you have to deal with realignment every four years, it can get pretty tricky.

“You’re part of the Capital Valley in Division II and all of a sudden I’m in the Capital Athletic League and I’m playing in Division III,” he said. “Four years from now, I’m now in the Sierra Valley Conference.”

Jackson said no matter what league her team is in they have to play that competition.

“We want to play good ‘competition because once the playoffs start you’re going to play some tough competition,” she said. “We want our league to be competitive because ultimately in the end the better you are because you’ll be ready to compete come playoff time.”

Summerhays said the four-year alignment cycle allows time for the league and relationships to develop. He said it is really important for committee to keep the integrity of certain rivalries.

“It helps with game receipts,” he said. “If they bring in a school that’s districts away they probably won ’t bring a huge crowd with them or maybe we won’t go their way, too.”

The next realignment is scheduled for 2014. In the end, the committee does the best it can.

“No league alignment and no realignment is perfect,” DeBoard said. “When you’re trying to fit 196 schools in realignment not everybody is going to be happy, that’s pretty much impossible to do. We try to make things as fair and as equitable as we possibly can.”