Have you ever had the unfortunate experience of being stuck listening to an unhappy couple in the middle of an argument?
It’s disgusting, sure, but we’ve all been there. And sometimes while having our ears dragged through the mud, we actually start feeling that despite all the hostilities both sides are making good points.
I bring this up, because that’s what it feels like for this writer as he arrives in Las Vegas from Los Angeles just in time to take on the new challenge of covering Southern Nevada and beyond for this publication.
The usual excitement the arrival a new high school football season brings has been somewhat blunted by the unsettling situation the local gridiron landscape finds itself in as it navigates a transition year with its new-look state playoff divisions.
What was building for years finally came to a head this past spring when 30 Clark County School District schools that have Class 5A and 4A football programs divorced the Nevada Interscholastic Athletics Association playoff format by moving to independent status and in the process threw state playoff divisioning into total chaos. The breakup will last for at least the next two seasons.
The reason? No longer wanting to compete with powerhouse Bishop Gorman due to perceived competitive inequity. Yes, the Gaels have got it like that. And there’s many more schools trying to become just like them. We’re cutting to the chase here, if you couldn’t tell. What’s happening in Southern Nevada is the culmination of a sentiment that permeates in many other states. It’s just that here in Las Vegas it finally boiled over and things happened.
WAS SECESSION REALLY THE ANSWER?
Public schools everywhere have quite simply had it with private or charter schools enjoying what they have long contended to be unfair advantages that ultimately make competitive equity a farce. In their opinion.
On one hand, you have to applaud the CCSD schools who hit the eject button. It’s a bold move that will leave them competing only against each other. Guess that means, a seven or eight-game schedule that has no promises for more action past early October.
“When people start looking at what we have to play by as CCSD (schools) and what Gorman and the charter schools get to play by, are two different sets of rules,” Liberty co-athletic director and football coach Rich Muraco told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “It’s not right. We’re playing for the same trophy under completely different sets of rules and different sets of advantages and disadvantages.”
Don’t know about you, but I need specifics. What exactly are those different advantages if we’re all playing by the same rules? Is there an insinuation that the governing body was not policing all schools equally … even ones that play in miniature college stadiums with facilities to match and wield heavy influence both locally and nationally? Perhaps the Bishop Gorman brand is now so powerful that it sells itself, which leads to an abundance of talent that other schools just aren’t privy to.
So yeah, the fallout means that Muraco’s Liberty Patriots are odds-on favorites in most people’s eyes to play fellow public school power Arbor View in the inaugural Superintendents Cup on Oct 23. You know, the same kind of postseason certainty that led public schools to want to ditch Bishop Gorman. How do the other 28 public school teams feel about the idea of us feeling like we can already pencil in Liberty versus Arbor View as the Superintendents Cup matchup while it’s still only August?
ABOUT BISHOP GORMAN
What if I told you the Detroit Lions’ playoff division this year was themselves, Florida State and East Mississippi Community College? Does that sound like something you might be interested in? Well, the same dynamic exists for the Gaels as they now headline the three-team Class 5A Southern Region that joins them with Losee and Faith Lutheran.
What little drama that used to exist beyond October with the Bishop Gorman schedule is now long gone unless the bandied about concept of a four-team national tournament comes to fruition later this fall. But maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. Let’s not kid ourselves, Bishop Gorman has its sights set on national glory, not Nevada glory. That’s why other powerhouses like St. John Bosco and Mater Dei are on the schedule. That’s why they’re on ESPN more than Duke basketball.
However, to chalk up the Gaels’ elite status to being some sort of advantaged entity versus disadvantaged victims is ridiculous. Could a public school program ever grow into what Bishop Gorman has become? Probably not. But there are thousands of other private school programs that aren’t Bishop Gorman or anywhere close and never will be.
National championship programs aren’t born that way. Someone has to build them and then maintain them. The advantages that Bishop Gorman has are earned advantages. Not gifted. There’s a difference. The Gaels have grown into this the same way many other programs hopefully aspire to do in the future.
If this stunt the public schools pulled was an attempt to nudge Bishop Gorman out the door and into something like a national or regional playoff situation with other like-programs, then that may actually backfire as the Bishop Gorman brand proliferates and the stranglehold on Las Vegas gets even tighter.
BEYOND THE BREAKUP
Told you, both sides of the argument have interesting points. That doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate, though. But here we are, set to find out if the grass is actually greener.
Sometimes it takes a rank outsider’s opinion to cut through and offer clarity. Here I am and here goes: what happened this offseason is a stain on Southern Nevada football. One that half of you probably appreciate or view as necessary. If anyone thinks the Superintendents 30 “really showed them” they’re sorely mistaken.
The idea of football, one of the lessons it forces, is to get better or meet failure against the backdrop of victimhood not being an option. That didn’t happen here. Not sure what I stumbled into taking this beat, but I’m interested to find out.
The good news is a new era of high school football drama in Southern Nevada is playing out right before our eyes and the games that tell us where the truth lies are about to start. Check back for updates (wink).
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