Will Palo Alto girls get the chance to defend their CCS golf title?

I feel so badly for these fantastic student athletes. I am hopeful that the SCVAL BOM will reverse its position and permit those eligible teams and individuals that qualify participate in CCS.

Unfortunately, regardless of their decision, the Girls Golf and Girls Tennis teams and Swimming and Diving teams will not be permitted to participate in CCS since their schedules were outside of the CCS calendar window. According to CCS Commissioner Grissom, SCVAL was “warned multiple times about this issue…and they made that decision…knowing what the repercussions would be if they chose to do so. This was solely a decision by the SCVAL.”

Some will suggest that this was done by the SCVAL BOM with the best intentions and maybe it was. However, by moving the start date for these season’s date back by 3 weeks as was proposed to the BOM or fully to season 2 these sports as well as 17 other sports would have been eligible for CCS. This proposal was presented to the BOM by a parent in early Feb and the proposal was dismissed out of hand.

Had the BOM followed public disclosure requirements and sought public input they could have achieved their stated goal of permitting as many athletes play as possible and staying within their governing bodies (CCS) calendar.

I hope that the SCVAL BOM will do the right thing at their 5/14 meeting and move to let the kids play. Then I hope they meet with the Girls Tennis, Girls Golf, and Swimming and Diving team’s student athletes to explain why they couldn’t find a way to keep them eligible, but could keep Boys Tennis and Boys Golf eligible.

Highly unlikely SCVAL will approve playoffs for Boys Golf and Boys Tennis and preclude Girls Golf and Girls Tennis. It sets them up for another lawsuit for violation of Title IX, which is why they are saying no to playoffs all around.

One would think that given the situation everyone has been facing, CCS would allow SCVAL to enter their teams into the playoffs. It would not be difficult to seed teams based on their performance, so that's not an issue. Nothing will be perfect. Are we still at the point where some sports still cannot compete more than one county away? If so, that eliminates a lot of CCS competition. Santa Clara County teams would not be able to compete against SF county and San Mateo schools could not compete against the southern counties. That would make setting up competitions difficult and water down any meaning of CCS Champion.

Either way, SCVAL and CCS should get together and find a way to let the students play as many post-season games as possible, ideally in a fully functioning playoff.

If Don Austin or any PAUSD administrators try to take any credit for any changes made by SCVAL, they should be ashamed of themselves. Embarrassing enough the way they've already handled the situation by voting against playoffs and then asking for SCVAL to reconsider.