Traditions are hard to change

“No one is ready to give them up.”

It’s that last comment that gives you a peek into issues facing PAL basketball. In a league where all sports (except cross country) are divided into two, or sometimes three, divisions based on competitive equity, the PAL basketball league is divided by geography.

That’s why you get a Half Moon Bay girls’ team that ran roughshod over the PAL North on their way to an undefeated season this past season and it’s why the San Mateo girls were mostly uncompetitive and went winless in PAL South play.

So the big question is: do you want blowout traditions or would you rather have your team playing against teams that give them a chance to compete?

Apparently, people still want the quads, regardless of competitive equity. And not just any quads. People want the traditional rivalry quads.

At a PAL Board of Managers meeting ahead of the end of the school year, Sell said he brought up the point of competitive equity versus continuing Friday night quads as is. It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. For three seasons — 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 — the PAL was structured based on competitive equity with Bay, Ocean and Lake Divisions. Quads were still played on Friday nights during those seasons. But they were quads that didn’t always feature traditional rivals.

Sell said he sees both sides of the argument. A realignment of the PAL based on strength would not eliminate the quads. It would simply mean that some of those long-standing, crosstown rivalries would be affected.

“You could still have quads, but those quads lose a little bit of their luster if they’re not with a crosstown rival,” Sell said. “I don’t disagree with that. We’ve been doing quads for a quarter of a century. I understand them and understand people get fired up for them.”

At the same time, what is the benefit of one team getting smoked by 40 points? Is that fun for the losing team? The fans of the losing team? I’ll be honest, when choosing games to cover for the Daily Journal, competitive balance comes into play. Very rarely will the Daily Journal staff willingly and knowingly cover a game when a blowout is the likely result.

And yet, the apparent prevailing thought among PAL ADs, coaches and fans is that a lopsided quad against a crosstown rival is better than a competitive game between evenly-matched teams.

“(Central Coast Section commissioner) Dave Grissom summarized it pretty well. ‘You do have something unique with those quads, but you also have a competitive equity issue,’” Sell said. “For the quads to continue (in their current format), something has to give and in this case, it’s competitive equity.”

This is an easily solved equation. For those teams that are not in the same division, just play the rivalry quads as non-league games. That’s what the Hillsdale and San Mateo boys’ teams did during the 2011-12 season.

There is another equity issue at play as well and that is gender equity. As women’s sports continues to grow at the youth, college and professional levels, Sell said he has started thinking about how to increase the optics of girls’ sports.

“As we’ve progressed as a society, we start to look at things differently,” Sell said. “One thing people kind of need to think about is, is it the right message to send to our girls, you’re the warm-up act every Friday?”

Sell said he brought up the idea of flipping the varsity boys’ and girls’ games for Friday night quads. The current setup is girls’ varsity games begin at 6:15 p.m. and boys’ tipoff around 7:45 p.m. Sell would like to see every other week having the boys’ game start early and the girls’ games get the main event.

“There is very little interest in switching those,” Sell said. “Traditions are hard to let go of.”

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. To report scores or tips, email sports@smdailyjournal.com.