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When I heard rumblings late last week that this past Friday was going to be the last game of the year for the Dougherty Valley football team, I wasn’t shocked – more on that in a bit – but I was surprised.
On Friday evening, after the Wildcats had beaten Hercules 27-25 for their first win of the season, I reached Mike Hansen, the acting athletic director for Dougherty Valley.
Hansen shed a beacon of light on what was going on. The win over the Hercules was not the last game for the Wildcats, but following the next three games – all non-league – Dougherty will not play East Bay Athletic League games this year.
“We will play the remainder of the varsity non-league games as the teams we have left to play are in the same sort of roster sizes as we are dealing with,” Hansen said.
Hansen was drawing reference to simple number issues. The Wildcats lost their first two games by a combined 90-7 total. And the numbers were dwindling. They suited up just 18 players for their game against San Leandro and by the end of the game, they were down to less than that.
In the end, the decision was made to collapse the junior varsity and varsity teams, allowing Dougherty to suit up to 28 for the game against Hercules.
But, and this is certainly the key issue, that is a majority of young players – many of whom are so young and so small that they would not likely make the varsity squad for any of the EBAL Valley Division teams.
“Student athlete safety is our No. 1 priority,” Hansen said. “This is the reset that we need as a program.”
In games with Kennedy-Fremont, Fremont of Oakland and Oakland High, the Wildcats are facing teams dealing with similar depth issues.
I think the biggest problem at Dougherty is that coaching was a revolving door, meaning it was impossible to build up a program. No continuity means no development which ultimately means no program.
“We have had five coaches in five years,” Hansen said. “But our coach this year, Gwangee Pittman, has committed to the program and wants to run year-round activities. We are hoping next year we could get over 30 kids (on the varsity).”
The EBAL program most affected by Dougherty’s decision to bow out of the EBAL is Foothill, coached by Greg Haubner. Foothill and Dougherty Valley were the only two EBAL programs to only have varsity and JV at the beginning of the year.
The game against Dougherty was to be the Falcons’ Homecoming game.
“It is what it is,” Haubner said. “I totally sympathize with (Dougherty Valley). My heart goes out to all those players and the coaches there.”
Haubner, who has replaced Dougherty with Newark Memorial on the Foothill schedule, has been at the point of having to make decisions regarding the safety of his players. One season he had 20 healthy players and a game looming with De La Salle. Haubner made the choice to pull out of the game rather than risk the safety of his players.
De La Salle is among the elite programs in the country and from a physical standpoint it was 100% the right thing for Haubner to do.
I 100% support the move by Dougherty. It completely sucks for the seniors, but if they were getting beat by 50 points a game or barely had enough people to field a team, how memorable of a season would it be?
In addition, the younger, smaller players would have faced possible serious injury and certainly be dissuaded from playing football in the future.
Like I said earlier, while I was surprised by this happening, I certainly was not shocked. These days have been creeping in for some time.
Changing demographics have hit football the hardest. In addition, the level of importance of athletics has changed when it comes to schools.
Athletics was everything for years. You had a great football program, and the entire school and community embraced the sport.
Now football does still have the ability to dominate the school landscape like last year when Amador Valley advanced to the CIF State Championship Bowl game for their division.
But athletics now share the limelight with other extracurricular activities like band, We the People competitions and other academic endeavors. In many cases that bleeds into the level of importance to the administration of schools.
Certainly, there are some schools blessed by administrators that are supportive of sports, but there are some where that may not be the case.
So, where are we headed?
I have been writing about this for years now, at times barking at the moon that these days were coming but very few listen, either refusing to accept it or simply ignoring it.
Here are a couple of ideas as to what would help. One very easy one, and one that would take a bit more work.
First off, stop this transfer madness. High school athletics have gotten every bit as bad as college athletics.
Transfers are killing much of what made high school athletics so special. I used to say high school athletics are the last pure vestige of sports but that ship has sailed. Coaches are forced to recruit – yes recruit – players or not compete.
The solution is simple: go to school where you live. Let the coaches just worry about just coaching again.
Roster sizes would improve, and there would be a greater balance of power.
There are rules in place, but they are very seldom enforced and largely ignored by the governing bodies of high school level, be it respective leagues, sections and state organizations.
Last year I wrote about the multitude of infractions that are ignored.
I think it’s gotten too overwhelming for the organizations to control. It’s easier to just ignore it than enforce it. It’s like no one wants to spend the time to clean up high athletics. That must be the reason as some of these acts are so blatant.
The other idea I got from Haubner is brilliant, but I think would be way too much work for those with a waning interest in athletics.
What if there were sports-specific leagues? Take football for example – if Dougherty Valley was placed in the Mission Valley Athletic League? The Wildcats would be playing against similar teams each week.
Put all the private schools in the same league, and there could be four such leagues in Northern California, with an “A”, “B”, “C” and maybe a “D” league.
Imagine how fun it would be to see games like De La Salle against schools like Serra, St. Francis, Mitty, Valley Christian-San Jose and Riordan every week.
Break it down to four leagues in Northern California – two in the Bay Area, one in the Sacramento area and one in the Central Valley.
At the end of the regular season, put the four winners of the respective leagues or even the top two teams in each division into a postseason tournament.
You could divide Southern California the same way. Then you would have a true private school state tournament, and there would also be a public-school event.
That would also put to bed all the arguing and complaining when it comes to private vs. public school debate.
Neither will ever come to fruition, as they are too logical and make too much sense. You would be leveling the playing field for every sport and every athlete.
Once again I am left wishing and hoping for common sense to prevail but we know how that works out.
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. This column originally appeared in Tri-Valley Preps Playbook, a weekly sports e-newsletter published by Embarcadero Media Foundation.
