By Dan Cleary

10/9/2008 - State Plays 52-Pickup

 Well, as expected, the proposed realignment of the high school athletic conferences in northern New Jersey was approved in a landslide 30-5 vote with one abstention by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association executive committee Wednesday down in Robbinsville.
   No surprise there. The association was in a hurry to get this done, and except for a one-year delay for some schools in Bergen and Passaic County, the plan will go into effect next fall come hell or high water.
   As I have stated before, whether you were for or against the plan, something was going to happen after the member schools of the NJSIAA almost voted to separate the public and non-public schools last December.
   One of the biggest complaints I have heard about the plan is that it does not address the issue of competitive balance between the publics and non-publics as the new format is based on size and geography. So in essence, all the state did was reshuffle the deck, according to some critics of the plan.
   I’ll take that one step further. Remember when you were playing cards as a kid and when someone wanted to play with you and you didn’t want them to, what would you do? You would ask them if they wanted to play 52-Pickup and when they inquired what that was, you would throw the cards on the ground and tell them to pick the cards up and then you would walk away laughing.
   Yes, I know, extremely childish. But unfortunately, the adults at the NJSIAA played the same game when they approved the realignment plan. They shuffled the deck by forming four “super conferences” but they threw down the cards and walked away when they told the member schools of the conferences to clean up the mess by separating the schools into divisions on their own.
   So where does that leave the 10 schools in the Sussex County Interscholastic League? Well, according to some published reports, the divisions are a done deal with the four larger schools—Vernon, Sparta, High Point and Pope John--- joining Roxbury, Randolph, Morris Knolls and Morristown.
   While the rest of the SCIL---Jefferson, Newton, Lenape Valley, Hopatcong, Kittatinny and Wallkill—will form a division with Sussex Tech, Chatham, Hanover Park and Morris Catholic.
  Not true.
   According to Morris Knolls AD Ken Mullen, who served on the state’s Leagues and Conference Realignment Committee, the only thing that has been approved is the selection of the 37 schools which will make up the Conference 4, which will house the SCIL schools. It is now up to those 37 schools to sort everything out and it ain’t going to be easy.
   Now Mullen wanted to make it perfectly clear that he is in no way, shape or form, the new president of the conference. That has to be decided by the schools. He is just an AD who “took the bull by the horns” and wanted to get a jump start on the process, he said.
   Mullen got in contact with 12 ADs from the four conferences—the SCIL, Northern Hills, Colonial Hills and the Iron Hills—which will comprise the new Conference 4 and they came up with some ideas to present to all 37 member schools at its first official conference meeting next Tuesday at the Randolph Indoor Sports Pavilion.
   Mullen said the group came up with several different proposals on how to divide up the schools, but it will present the divisional alignment that was first reported by MugsMedia.com two weeks ago (9/25/2008 NJSIAA Lacks Direction).   The four larger SCIL schools will join Montville, West Morris and Mount Olive in Division A, while Morris Hills will be added to Division C along with the rest of the SCIL schools. 
   Sussex Tech will seek associate membership in certain sports in Division D with Chatham, Dover, Hanover Park, Madison, Parsippany, Pequannock and Saint Elizabeth. The Mustangs are already members of the North Jersey Technical Interscholastic League in baseball, softball, boys and girls basketball, boys soccer and cross country and will remain so. 
   Division B will be comprised of Delbarton, Mendham, Morristown, Morris Knolls, Parsippany Hills, Randolph and Roxbury. Division E will house Boonton, Butler, Kinnelon, Morris Catholic, Morristown Beard, Mountain Lakes, Villa Walsh and Whippany Park.
   Mullen said he polled all 12 ADs and asked them to grade the plan and he said they all gave it a 95 or above, which he felt was a step in the right direction. He added whatever plan the ADs come up with would be subject to the approval of the majority of the 37 schools superintendents for it to go into effect.
  Mullen added that there is much more work to be done before next fall and still a lot questions that need to be answered, like, will the schools opt to divide the conference strictly by enrollment and location or will they want to take strength of program into consideration, like the Shore Conference does. Schools in the Shore Conference can belong to different divisions depending on how they perform in each sport.
   All these questions will be put on the table next week, Mullen said.
  “Not everyone is going to be happy, no question,” said Mullen. “If you have 37 different opinions, it will be difficult. The logistics involved in putting this package together are monumental. There will be meeting, after meeting. It will be an arduous task. But this offers the best opportunity to be fair.”
  One person who is definitely not happy is Dr. John Hannum, the superintendent at High Point Regional High School. Dr. Hannum spoke out against the plan as he told the members of the executive committee before the vote that, “It’s taken less time to realign the state than it’s taken my son to plan his wedding.”
   Dr. Hannum told me Thursday after the vote that he was still upset. “I’m very disappointed in the decision. This realignment has been on the fast track since its inception (January of 2008),” he said. “I believe something needs to be done, maybe starting with just football. But what they are doing now is wrong and not in the best interest of High Point.”
  Dr. Hannum made a last ditch effort to keep the SCIL intact last week when he called a meeting of all of the SCIL superintendents. He said that the league voted 8-2 to go along with the realignment with only Sparta joining High Point. He said he was very disappointed that the member schools did not stand together to fight to keep the SCIL together.
   He added that High Point is currently, “exploring all of its options” before making a final decision as to what the school will chose to do in the future. Already, several schools in Bergen County are making noise about going independent, will the Wildcats follow suit? We will have to wait and see.
  The bottom line is that the state wanted to push this through, and for the most part, most of the schools affected are for it. But one thing is for sure, this issue is far from over.
   ON A SAD NOTE… My old colleague and one of the best wrestling writers in the state, Mike Weilamann, contacted me the other day about former Phillipsburg wrestler Luke Grassi, who wrestled both Kodie Silvestri of Wallkill Valley and Derek Valenti of Kittatinny. Grassi had a liver transplant on Monday. The family is hurting to pay the medical bills and the wrestling community is joining together to help out.
   Anyone wishing to contribute to help with his medical bills can send
contributions to Baker Federal Credit Union, c/o Luke Grassi, 501
Baltimore St., Phillipsburg, N.J. 08865. Cards can be sent to Mr. Luke
Grassi, patient, University of Penn Hospital, 3400 Spruce Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19104.
   The high school wrestling community in the state is definitely unique, passionate and tight-nit. Here is hoping Luke all the best.
   That’s it for now, see you on the sidelines.