Football: EBAL loses appeal to remove Clayton Valley; what it means
SAN RAMON — The East Bay Athletic League’s last-ditch attempt to prevent Clayton Valley Charter’s football team from joining the league this fall came up short Monday.
A three-member North Coast Section appeals panel listened to 50 minutes of testimony at the section offices in San Ramon as the EBAL sought to overturn the NCS Alignment Committee’s 3-1 vote last month to place the Concord school in the EBAL over the Bay Valley Athletic League.
The panel voted 3-0 to deny the EBAL’s appeal.
The NCS Board of Managers is expected to make the decision official Friday.
What this means is the EBAL will now have to decide where to place Clayton Valley and what to do with a league schedule that already was completed.
Schools in the league also might have to tweak non-league schedules.
Clayton Valley presumably will be placed the Mountain Division with De La Salle, Monte Vista, San Ramon Valley, California and possibly Foothill.
“CVCHS and the EBAL schools will determine a schedule and decide on sub-varsity competition,” NCS commissioner Gil Lemmon said in an email.
The EBAL argued again Monday that the BVAL, which stretches from Pittsburg to Brentwood/Oakley, is a better geographic fit for Clayton Valley than the EBAL, which extends from Concord down the 680 corridor and into Pleasanton and Livermore.
The EBAL disputed the BVAL’s claim that it would be easier to add an 11th team to the EBAL, which currently places its top five football teams in the Mountain Division and its less competitive five into the Valley Division, than adding a sixth team to the BVAL.
In a letter notifying the NCS of the league’s decision to appeal, EBAL commissioner Rob Stockberger noted that the placement of Clayton Valley into the EBAL would “prompt the EBAL to consider the feasibility and potential scheduling benefits of moving from two divisions to one 10-game league schedule.”
Stockberger’s letter also addressed competitive equity.
Clayton Valley was removed from the Diablo Athletic League because of its dominance. The Ugly Eagles were described as a “competitive anomaly” in the DAL’s request to have the school’s football team moved to another league.
But Stockberger pointed out that the EBAL already has a “competitive anomaly.” De La Salle has not lost to a California team north of the Fresno area since 1991.
“Consider the EBAL school that may play De La Salle and CVCHS in consecutive weeks,” Stockberger wrote.
In his final point, Stockberger added that the Alignment Committee had a “minimal quorum” when it voted to move Clayton Valley to the EBAL, noting that one participant listened and voted by phone and a fifth member could not vote because of his affiliation to the EBAL.
“The discussion by the other four committee members included periods of confusion and purported inability to access data,” Stockberger wrote. “This ultimately resulted in a failed motion to place CVCHS Football into the BVAL (2-2 vote), immediately followed by a second motion to place CVCHS Football into the EBAL (3-1), with no further discussion.”
Lemmon addressed the appeals panel on behalf of the Alignment Committee. The panel included three neutral party members — chairman Craig Kinser of the Coastal Mountain Conference, Tom Thomsen of the Mission Valley Athletic League and Bryan Anderson of the Bay Area Conference.
Lemmon had a rebuttal for each of the EBAL’s points.
“There is no such thing as a minimal quorum,” Lemmon said. “There’s either a quorum or there’s not a quorum. Having a person join by conference call is not a violation of any rules.”
Lemmon acknowledged that the average distance between the schools, with the addition of Clayton Valley, would be marginally closer in the BVAL than the EBAL. But, he added, the Alignment Committee believed that Clayton Valley was a better competitive fit in the EBAL’s top division than in the BVAL.
The data shows it’s close.
In the past three seasons, the BVAL and the EBAL’s Mountain Division each have averaged 4.33 teams in MaxPreps’ season-ending Top 25 NCS computer rankings.
Lemmon scoffed at the notion that the EBAL would combine its two football divisions if Clayton Valley joined, citing the vast difference between the top and bottom of the league.
“I find it hard to believe that the EBAL could argue at any time, whether it be today or any other time, that … we’re not sure how we’re going to place the schools. Maybe everybody will play everybody in the league. Now Clayton Valley’s got to travel to Livermore and Granada.
“I think that is, frankly, ridiculous. They went to competitive divisions for a reason, that there is such a divide between the top schools in the league and the lower threshold of schools.”
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