Vote clears path for PAL-SCVAL football merger

The ball is now in the court of the SCVAL BOM. That organization was originally going to vote on the merger proposal earlier this week, but wanted to wait until the PAL BOM held their vote. To join with the PAL, the SCVAL would have to — officially — no longer offer football as a sport for its member schools, making the move to another league a necessity.

“I’d be shocked (if the SCVAL didn’t vote for the proposal),” said Steve Sell, Aragon football coach and athletic director, who has been working on this move for the last four years.

“I think they (SCVAL members) wanted to know they were welcomed with open arms.”

Al Mack, South San Francisco assistant principal and PAL BOM president, said he was talking with his SCVAL counterpart, who told him that the SCVAL athletic directors had voted unanimously in favor of the merger proposal.

“They wanted to see the outcome from today (when the PAL BOM voted),” Mack said. He noted that the SCVAL BOM is expected to cast their vote in the coming days.

As far as the PAL is concerned, this was the final step in the process. The first step was to poll the PAL football coaches about the merger. That vote was 17-1.

The PAL athletic directors was the next group that had to sign off on the proposal — which it did by a unanimous vote.

The BOM vote was the last step.

“It’s encouraging that both our ADs and principals voted unanimously on this,” Sell said.

Sequoia athletic director Melissa Schmidt, who has been working closely with Sell on the proposal, presented the plan to the PAL BOM at a meeting held in the Sequoia High School multi-purpose room. She explained that the main reason for the merger was because of the widening gap both leagues were dealing with, especially with teams in the lower divisions of each league.

“The core issue is one of competitive equity,” Schmidt told the BOM. “SCVAL is struggling with a lack of competitive equity and we’re starting to see it in the PAL.

“When kids are put in these (non-competitive) situations … kids stop playing football.”

While all the teams will play under the PAL umbrella, remnants of the SCVAL will still be used, including the division names “De Anza” and “El Camino,” which are the two divisions that currently comprise the SCVAL.

The proposal looks like this: all 32 teams will be assigned power points, based on the 2021 season. The top 12 teams will then be split into two, six-team divisions based on geography. Those two top divisions will be the Bay and De Anza and will be an “A” league in the Central Coast Section.

The next 12 teams will be placed in two, six-team divisions, based on geography, named the Ocean and El Camino divisions. It will be a CCS “B” league.

The final eight teams will placed in the Lake Division, a “C” league in CCS.

As for the CCS playoffs, automatic bids will remain the same. The top four teams from both the Bay and De Anza divisions would receive automatic bids and so on.

“The SCVAL brings its automatic qualifiers with them,” said Terry Stogner, PAL commissioner.

There wasn’t a lot of discussion among the BOM members. Half Moon Bay principal John Nazar, who said, “I like what I’m seeing — a lot,” said he thought it was the right step to make, with the hope that it could help build up programs that have been struggling with numbers.

Monique De Brito Guedes, assistant principal at Capuchino, said her school was willing to vote “yes” on the proposal, but wanted guarantees that the proposed 32-member league would be reviewed regularly to make sure that the league was accomplishing what it set out to do.

The BOM then passed a motion that the league would be reviewed annually, following the season.

Assuming the SCVAL BOM votes in favor of the proposal, the next step, Mack said, is for both leagues to put together committees to work together to hash out the final details of everything.

“There are some things to still iron out,” Sell said.