Football to start as Central Valley private schools start league. Not everyone is happy
.JPG "The Oak Ridge Trojans head out to face an opponent in 2017. A new club football league is allowing high school football players in California, including some in the Sac-Joaquin Section, to start competing on Friday.")
Since fall, there has been rampant speculation of Central Valley high school football teams practicing in full gear or playing against each other, in violation of state health rules amid the coronavirus pandemic. Those rumors were debunked — just teams conditioning and hoping to play games.
But football is scheduled to kick off Friday in Modesto, Merced, Ripon, Sacramento and other places dotted throughout Northern California. A new club league has been formed primarily by private schools willing to break with state health regulations and the governing body for high school sports.
The California Association of Private Sports, based out of Petaluma, starts play Friday with a slate of football games in the Central Valley. Supporters say the league is a much-needed outlet for kids who have been cooped up during the pandemic; many detractors say the league could be dangerous for the players’ health and could spread the deadly disease, prolonging the fight against COVID-19.
The intent is to give kids a season to play after much has been lost in California since COVID-19 canceled a year’s worth of games and events for 3 million student-athletes in the state. The science around the spread of the coronavirus says this: Hold off. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees prep sports, have mostly banned sports competitions for 11 months because of the pandemic. Newsom and his office met with advocacy football groups the last two weeks to discuss data, the mental toll of no sports and how to get sports jump-started.
To that end, a lot of coaches, parents and players have long run out of patience. They want games and action, not words and talk of, “soon.”
“These kids have a right to play for their mental health,” said CAPS President and Knights Outdoor Fitness coach Phil Grams, the former Capital Christian of Sacramento football head coach now heading the Ripon Christian football program.
However, not everyone is supportive. Concerns over competitive equity, health and safety as it relates to equipment standards, potential conflicts with CIF rules that could jeopardize school and player eligibility this spring and a perceived infringement on the spirit of high school football have been raised by everyone from the Sac-Joaquin Section to coaches throughout the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Grams said talks began in October about starting a club league. CAPS is following a model similar to the CIF when it comes to an acclimation period for clubs: a few days in helmets, then shoulder pads, then eventually full pads but only limited amount of full-padded practices per week.
Here is what the league will look like, according to Grams:
▪ 12 teams with a potential for four more. Some clubs will have both 19-under and 16-under teams. Some will just have 19-under.
▪ Regions where clubs are from include Bakersfield, San Joaquin County, Stanislaus County, Sacramento County, and Sonoma County.
▪ Start date is Friday, Feb. 12, and the season will end at the end of March.
▪ The organization has more than 150 coaches and 640 players.
▪ Four facilities, all private schools, are secured to host games.
▪ Some districts have allowed clubs to practice on high school campuses, some clubs are renting facilities.
Youth football remains banned in virtually the entire state due to the coronavirus pandemic, with only three counties out of 58 in the orange tier, which would allow schools to play football.
Sacramento, Placer, Yolo, El Dorado, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus counties are all in the purple tier, as is much of the state.
CIF’s Response
The CIF is broken into 10 sections. The largest of the 10 is the Southern Section in Southern California, with more than 650 schools. The second-largest, with nearly 200, is the Sac-Joaquin Section, which stretches from Merced in the south to Grass Valley in the north and into Yolo County and the outskirts of El Dorado and Placer counties. That’s a lot of ground, a lot of schools and a lot of eager students wanting to compete.
Sac-Joaquin Section commissioner Mike Garrison said the club football organization notified the section of its league but said some of the clubs are heading down a “slippery slope”.
“I don’t know the avenue that this group is going down is the appropriate avenue,” Garrison said. “There are so many things related to football why we haven’t seen club football in the past.”
The CIF oversees the education-based sports programs in the state, and has since 1914. It has no control over club sports, none of which are tied to a particular school, but a school cannot represent itself as a club and use its own football gear or practice on school grounds unless it is leased out.
If these clubs violate some of the CIF rules, schools could face fines or suspensions. The CIF made that clear last month with news of club teams competing in Southern California.
With safety in mind, the issue of equipment is major such as recertification of football equipment. And this: should a player use equipment from his high school and get hurt, liability becomes an immediate concern.
According to the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, this process is done to make sure “athletic equipment meets the original certification requirements.”
Helmets are recommended to be reconditioned every two years, according to the Helmet Tracker, a sports equipment technology company.
One coach told The Modesto Bee that one of the club football teams under CAPS has been using equipment from a school that hasn’t fielded a team in years. It’s unclear if the equipment is safe to use after years of storage.
Sacramento has a club team called IronSharpensIron that concluded its winter season Saturday in Southern California. Though the intention was to help kids get in games, to be seen, to feel normal, many Sacramento-area football coaches were not on board, citing safety, with Granite Bay coach Jeff Evans saying, “I would be completely against a club team for football. I am not impervious to the strife our players feel, but football is one of the last sports not being completely destroyed by club sports. Baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer are being ruled by the almighty dollar and club sports. Football remains pretty much untouched by the club programs, and that is where it needs to stay.”
Evans added, “Football is too dangerous of a sport to leave its teaching in the hands of somebody motivated by money or status.”
For this club season, only 20% of fans will be allowed at stadiums at games and body temperatures will be taken at the door, according to Grams. Players also will not have a locker room to change in, an effort to be as safe as possible.
Documents obtained by The Modesto Bee showed each player is required to get a physical by a doctor before they are cleared and CAPS has protocols in place in case a player tests positive for COVID-19 or is exposed to the virus.
CAPS coaches, players quiet
Coaches and school officials of these clubs, which are mainly made up of players from one school, have been quiet. This goes against the norm. Usually, prep coaches enjoy talking to the media about their players, their teams, but a lot of the club efforts have been hush-hush. Players contacted by The Sacramento Bee declined to talk, two of them saying they were told to not discuss their club season.
A club football schedule obtained by The Modesto Bee made it easy to identify some of the clubs. When The Modesto Bee contacted some of the athletic directors and coaches believed to be tied to those kids and programs, they would not confirm their involvement and declined further comment.
Some of these clubs will be playing at their own home “school” stadiums and are using the same mascot as their high school team. The Stanislaus District will have five clubs, according to Grams, but the names of them were not released.
“The fact that this is going on and it’s so secretive makes you wonder the integrity of this league,” Patterson High football coach Rob Cozart said. “The fine line between separation of CIF and club football is very thin.”
Cozart is not involved with the league. He said one club reached out to him to ask if one of his players could join their club.
He understands the intent, especially for the seniors, and said it was OK but if some of his players transfer to where this club plays, then it will be a problem.
Ripon High coach sounds off
Ripon High football coach Chris Musseman said he is against the idea, especially because his school is abiding by the health rules but a club (Knights Outdoor Fitness) is practicing next to his school’s campus.
“I think (club football) will absolutely destroy what high school football is really about,” Musseman said. “Teaching kids to work as teammates and hard work will work in the long run. It’s not about winning and losing games, and we aren’t mentioning school spirit and pride in your community with high school football.”
Club football, which features multiple private schools, is another reason that “maybe private schools need to form their own federation”, Musseman said.
“They are not bound by the same rules,” he said. “You are never going to stop them from recruiting.”
Musseman continued: “We have been fighting so hard for all the kids. ... To see them across the street practicing, it rips our kids’ hearts apart.”
If CIF allows season, we will come back
According to CAPS leader Grams, if the CIF is allowed to host high school football this year, the league will cease operations.
“Every club director in our CAPS organization said if the CIF finds a path for high school football this year, we will give up the money (used to start the league) and play in the CIF,” he said.
However, if a high school schedule does kick off in the next month, the club teams will have had quite a few full-padded practices and have a competitive advantage over most schools.
Also, if CIF-based prep football kicks off in March, which is the hope, while the CAPS league is in play, some players may pay a price. They could sit out CIF-sanctioned games or quarantine because state health guidelines recommend athletes to play with one “cohort” at a time, meaning one team and not multiple teams.
Mixed reviews in Sacramento
In Sacramento, private schools Bradshaw Christian and Jesuit said they are not involved in club football. Capital Christian is on the CAPS schedule as a game host site, as is Stone Ridge Christian in Merced.
Capital Christian athletic director Aaron Garcia wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee recently, “Our athletic department here at Capital is working very hard to provide our kids and families the best opportunities possible during these ever changing times. We are working within the CIF constitution and bylaws, while trying to prepare our student-athletes and coaches the best we can for a return to play scenario that hopefully happens soon. As a Christian school, our Athletic Department is making every effort to move forward in Faith, and not fear of the circumstances around us.
“I cannot speak for other schools, public or private, but we, here at Capital, are paying close attention to recent information put out by our CIF section and state offices and trying to navigate accordingly.”
Said Jesuit athletic director Hank Weinberger in an email to The Sacramento Bee, “We hope that further adjustments can happen to salvage our football season this year — and that it can happen quickly — but we will not circumvent our CIF section by playing as a club or other youth sports program.”
The Jesuit AD added, “Overall, our student-athletes continue to bond with each other during their in-person classes and daily team conditioning sessions. Still, all of the athletic department and administration recognizes that not being able to have actual game time and league play is difficult physically but even more so emotionally and mentally on our young men.”
He concluded with, “However, we will not put our Marauder legacy or our future CIF eligibility in jeopardy by doing any events outside the guidelines. Our Jesuit football players and coaches anxiously await word from the state to compete and when the green light comes, we will be ready.”
Club origins in California
This isn’t the first club football league to start in California.
Winner Circle Athletics started its own club league in Chino and has had a month of games but were recently sent a notice of violations, according to the Los Angeles Times.
According to the Times, the city of Chino found the organization violated the city’s municipal code and they would have to obtain a special events permit and business license to hold games on a field the organization built.
There is also a stigma with club sports that it’s only for the rich (a club team competing in the Winners Circle club league costs close to $700 per player) but Grams, the CAPS regional league leader, has a different model.
“Everyone can play,” he said. “Some players pay some, some donors paid the complete amount for a team. For our club, we (coaches and adults) bought all of our equipment. Some teams are leasing.”
Grams said the players are excited to have something normal.
“All the work is worth it,” he said. “There is a sense of joy in their hearts again.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Football to start as Central Valley private schools start league. Not everyone is happy."
