Gilroy
– For the most part, area high school coaches and administrators
are in favor of the recently approved California state championship
in football.
Gilroy – For the most part, area high school coaches and administrators are in favor of the recently approved California state championship in football.
“I would rather see it happen with some flaws than not implement something like that at all,” said GHS football coach Darren Yafai.
But Hollister coach Chris Cameron doesn’t think the flaws – or another week of play – is worth crowning a state champion.
To many people, the “flaw” in the new championship bowl format is the use of computerized rankings, which an approved committee will use for the first bowl games in 2006 to select two of 10 section champions, one from Northern California and one from Southern California, to play for the state title in each of three divisions.
“It’s not just lining up and playing,” Cameron said. “To add another week … is just another week that kids that want to do winter sports are out, missing competition time.”
Yafai argues that the number of athletes who play both football and a winter sport, and actually make it to the championship game, is so small that it doesn’t make for a big issue.
“It’s a small, itty-bitty percentage that’s affected,” Yafai said, adding that this past year, only one player on his squad also played varsity basketball.
While Yafai feels that extending the season one more week is worth it, Cameron argues that the season is already long and grueling enough.
“I think it should die where it dies right now,” Cameron said.
Cameron also has a problem with the format turning into a Bowl Championship Series mess with the proposed computerized ranking system.
“I just don’t know how you would make it fair enough,” Cameron said. “That’s why you go out and play those games.”
Both Gilroy athletic director Jack Daley and San Benito athletic director Tod Thatcher like that the revenue generated by the state championship games will go into a coaching education fund for California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) schools.
“(A state championship) was bound to happen, I think, and money kind of drives things,” Daley said. “In the proposal, it talked about putting (money) back into coaching education. Hopefully, they follow through on that.”
At the same CIF council meeting, a milestone step was taken to specifically ban steroids in all CIF member schools. No other state has passed such a proposal for high school athletes.
The new CIF rule doesn’t change much for Gilroy student–athletes, Daley said. The CIF proposal now mandates that student–athletes and their guardians sign contracts agreeing to not use steroids. Student–athletes who have to take steroids for approved medical reasons are the exception to the rule.
“We have a steroid policy in place in terms of signing something (with their student–athlete paperwork),” Daley said. “Our coaches do a pretty good job of educating kids.”
