Current Success Jeopardizes Football’s Future

As a result of its recent string of NCS titles, football may be moved into a larger division for the 2018 season because of competitive equity rules.  1st established 3 years ago, the NCS rule states that if a team wins 3 consecutive titles, it must be moved up to a larger division.

According to head coach Kevin Macy, had his team lost in the title game, it would still be move up. “Right now, they’re already claiming we have enough points just by playing in the North Coast Section championship game,” he said. “If we won or lost, it didn’t matter, we had enough points based on whatever their system is for awarding points.”

Some see this as penalizing teams for being consistently good against schools of equal size, and thus, with equal talent pools from which to draw.

“It’s unfair because we are being punished for being successful,” said junior football player John Cirelli. He added that as seniors graduate every year, the team changes.  While a program may be successful relative to similarly sized schools over a few years, the players themselves are constantly changing as new athletes move up through the ranks.

In the 2014 school year, Campolindo was competing in Division 3.  The prospect of having to compete against schools in Division 1 that have twice as many students is disheartening for Macy, who has established a legacy of success over the last decade at Campolindo. “Everyone would know that [moving up to DI] would mean that would be the end of any playoffs, or advancing to Thanksgiving, or ever playing in the North Coast championship game, or ever playing for state. Those things would all be over,” said Macy.

The long-time coach thinks that the change will be devastating for his program. “It makes no sense for a small school in a little bubble that found they had talent and were able to do well for a few years should then be, in essence, put out of business.”

Sophomore Mason Mastrov also thinks the move up to Division 1 will be challenging. “I feel like the NCS creators are judging us based off the past years, and moving forward, if we’re gonna be playing against Division I teams, they have a lot more kids than us and the teams would be a lot tougher,” he said. “So it’s kind of a flip-flop of what we’re playing now.”

Not only do Division 1 schools have more depth, but according to Macy, their players are also physically bigger and stronger. “There is risk of injury because we would be playing much bigger kids,” he said. “Maybe we could win 1 playoff game a year, at best. Eventually, this competition is just too big for us to take on.”

Macy also noted that his concerns about the safety of his players are shared by many of his players’ parents. “Ask anyone, this rule doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“We would be fine just staying in Division II because they’re moving up Bishop O’Dowd, and Marin Catholic are moving up into Division II, which would make that Division II bracket very challenging next year,” added Macy.

Cirelli, for one, refuses to give up however. “The team and I welcome the challenge and we look forward to strong competition,” he said.