Reverberations from the Sobrato High football program’s decision to pull out of the Tri-County Athletic League and play an independent schedule are being felt all over the area. Football teams are scrambling to accomodate the scheduling change by finding last-minute fill-in opponents, apparently with little hope of success.
In fact, some teams are finding themselves in direct competition with Sobrato, which also must alter its schedule, for fill-in opponents. School officials and football coaches are steaming mad about the debacle, which even Sobrato principal Rich Knapp acknowledged was inexcusable.
But most area schools’ football programs will only feel the pinch for a single season, while one school will certainly absorb the ramifications for years to come.
That school? Sobrato.
To call what Sobrato did to the rest of the TCAL football teams a last-minute pull-out would be sugar-coating it. Actually, it was after the last minute. After years of asking to be included in the TCAL over the objections of the league’s other schools. And after those schools had already worked for months to approve a massive rescheduling plan to incorporate Sobrato.
Even after the TCAL had officially approved the final schedule, and well after most football programs had finalized their schedules, making it virtually impossible to fill in the holes created by Sobrato’s departure and the anticipated league scheduling shift.
All this has earned Sobrato an enmity from TCAL schools that it will find hard to overcome. How long will it be before a TCAL school schedules Sobrato in football? How will this affect the relationship between the league’s schools and the rest of Sobrato’s sports, which are competing in the TCAL this year before moving to the Blossom Valley Athletic League in 2006-07?
Frankly, it’s a surprise TCAL officials didn’t tell Sobrato to go independent in all sports next season.
And what kind of message does it send to the Sobrato players? Why are they all of a sudden not capable of playing with the big boys in the TCAL after years of planning to do just that? Have they not developed quickly enough? They seemed to last fall, compiling an outstanding record against mostly freshman teams.
There was never a hint of concerns about Sobrato’s ability to compete in TCAL from athletic director Dennis Martin and head football coach Jeff Patterson, who both consistently said last fall was a tune-up for TCAL. It was only when a group of football parents reportedly raised concerns that Sobrato officials changed course. Which begs the question, should parents determine school decision-making? Will Sobrato’s AD and athletic coaches have to check with the parents for scheduling approval from here on out?
It could be years before Sobrato lives this one down – and that’s not to downplay the difficulties TCAL football programs face in preparing for next season.
At Live Oak High, head football coach Glen Webb said he is left in a kind of Catch-22, given that the TCAL hasn’t actually decided how to deal with Sobrato’s departure yet. The league has two options: keeping the finalized schedule, which starts in Week 4 and includes a bye due to an odd number of league teams; or reverting to last year’s schedule, which starts in Week 6 and includes no byes.
If the league keeps the finalized schedule, it would mean each TCAL school would have to fill in the hole left by Sobrato. Webb said this is a huge, if not insurmountable, challenge because LO was set to play Sobrato in Week 9 of the league schedule and few football programs have an opening so late in the season.
If the TCAL goes back to last year’s schedule – the more likely scenario – it mean that LO would have a league game in Week 9, but would have back-to-back byes in Weeks 4 and 5. (The Acorn football program scheduled a Week 0 game against Silver Creek because the altered TCAL schedule had LO with a difficult-to-schedule Week 5 bye. LO also lost previously scheduled Week 4 and 5 games against Monterey and North Monterey County due to the TCAL’s rescheduling efforts to accomodate Sobrato.)
To accomodate Sobrato, Gilroy High head football coach Darren Yafai said he had to break a two-year contract with North Monterey County, with which the Mustangs had a Week 5 home game set for next season. Yafai said TCAL coaches were scrambling to find fill-in opponents at a recent football clinic in San Francisco.
But he said Sobrato is trying to button-hole the small number of schools that haven’t yet finalized their schedules. For instance, Yafai said he called Alisal to try to add the Trojans to the schedule but was told that Sobrato had already called and would probably get first consideration. To make matters worse, Yafai said he can’t schedule fill-in games yet because the TCAL hasn’t decided how to respond to Sobrato’s exodus.
Even though Sobrato’s Martin and Patterson toed the company line on the pull-out, they can’t be happy about being the embarrassed subject of such ire.
Nobody, it seems, is turning out to be a winner in this situation.
Jim Johnson is the Morgan Hill Times Sports Editor. He can be reached at (408) 779-4106 (ext. 203) or by email at jj******@*************es.com
