PAL-SCVAL football merger complete

The merger is to be in place in time for the 2022 season. The SCVAL, as a league, will no longer offer football to its 14 member schools, necessitating a move to a league that would accommodate those teams. Those 14 schools — which includes the likes of Los Gatos, Wilcox and Saratoga — will now be blended in with the 18 teams in the PAL to create a 32-team super league, with teams moved into one of five divisions, based on a number of factors — including rankings from calpreps.com, along with team’s roster makeup, how many returning starters a team has and how the junior varsity team performed. 

The move was first broached in 2017 and, in the intervening four years, the proposal has changed significantly. It took time and more expanded outlook for the move to be finally made.

“A couple of years ago, our league was not ready (for this merger),” said Sell, who is also Aragon’s football coach and president of the Central Coast Section. “We were not in such dire straits.”

But as the gap in competitive equity kept growing, both leagues realized that a merger was the best solution to keep kids involved in the sport of football and keep it relevant at schools.

“Both of our leagues had similar issues,” said Ken Perrotti, Los Gatos athletic director who became the point person on the SCVAL side of the merger. “We were having issues where the lower teams in our ‘B’ division (El Camino Division) should be in a ‘C’ division.

“We’ve been trying to find solutions. I’ve sat in on a lot of (SCVAL) football meetings the last five years. This (topic) always comes up.”

While the football coaches in both leagues have been in discussions for the last couple years, the first major merger domino fell last week when the PAL BOM voted unanimously to move forward with the merger. This past Wednesday, a subcommittee from both the PAL and the SCVAL met to hammer out the final details and agree upon the language to make merger a reality.

Sell said he was encouraged by the vibe in that meeting.

“It was about the most encouraging two hours in my career as an AD,” Sell said. “The discourse and discussion was accommodating, respectful, compromising. … Everyone walked out of there thinking this is going to work because the people involved believe in why we’re doing it and want to provide a better experience for the kids.

“As the meeting went on, it was a much deeper philosophical, big-picture discussion than, ‘I want to get my team in the right division.’”

After Wednesday’s meeting, the SCVAL subcommittee reported back to their school representatives and the decision was voted on Friday morning.

“It’s one of those rare situations where it makes sense to just about every person who comes across it,” Perrotti said. “There’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but everyone has been great in cooperation … and doing what needs to be done to make it work. We want to do right by our students.”

The next step comes Monday morning, when a seven-member committee — with representatives from both the PAL and the former SCVAL, as well as the West Bay Athletic League (which is the home league for Menlo School and Sacred Heart Prep) — will meet to determine into which divisions schools will be placed. According to the new by-law, all 32 teams will be ranked, 1 through 32. The top 12 teams will be split into two divisions of six, the Bay and De Anza divisions — based on geography. The next 12 teams will make up the six-team Ocean and El Camino divisions. Again, based on geography, although there is a good chance traditional PAL teams could play in a predominantly SCVAL division.

The remaining eight teams will be placed in the Lake Division.

One of the reasons behind the move, in addition to providing better competitive equity, was also to lessen the stress of filling out schedules. Teams in the PAL were tasked with finding five non-league games, which was becoming increasingly difficult and necessitated travel farther away to find them.

With the merger comes a new scheduling system. Now, instead of finding five non-league opponents, programs will now have to schedule only three non-league games. The two other non-league games on the slate are now mandatory crossover games between like divisions. For example, Bay Division teams would play De Anza Division teams, or Ocean would play El Camino squads. The final five games then would all be league games.

The teams that comprise the Lake Division would not be involved in crossover games. With an eight-team division, it gives each team seven league games, leaving them to find just three other opponents.

“Having 32 teams, there is a lot more flexibility to place teams in the right weight class,” Sell said.

The merger also calls for the traditional rivalry games to be played as well, but there are some instances that could cause those games to look a little bit different. The way the league is currently constructed, rivalry games between rival teams have to be in the top two divisions.

But if one of the rivalry teams is in the Lake Division, it could see teams play their rivalry games at some point other than the final game of the regular season. So there will still be some scheduling issues to iron out.

But as Sell pointed out, this merger is for the long-term health of the sport on the Peninsula. If some longtime traditions get upset along the way, it’s simply the price to be paid.

“The No. 1 thing, loud and clear, is competitive equity,” Sell said. “Everyone knew these rivalry games could be problematic. It will take some rescheduling and that’s not impossible.”

Added Perrotti: “[The move is] really good. It’s a lot of schools that are similar to one another. … We’re pretty excited about this compromise.”