The PIAA: All Bark, No Bite

During this past football season, new pub entry in football, Fitzsimons, was found to have an ineligible player on their team. On September 27, 2007, the Philadelphia school district determined that Fitzsimons used several ineligible players from other schools in their first three games. Their only win was taken away and the team was put on probation for the remainder of the season. On October 4, 2007, which was exactly 7 days after being put on probation, the Fitzsimons team took the field to play Prep Charter. The following account, by Philadelphia Daily News reporter, Ted Silary, was posted to Ted’s site the same day:

Originally posted by Ted Silary on www.TedSilary.com on October 4, 2007
OCT. 4 PUBLIC AAA
FitzSimons 16, Prep Charter 8 (OT)
One of these days, or years, FitzSimons will finally post a “first win” not tied to controversy. Don’t hold your breath. Fitz recently had to forfeit a win over Furness because, without formal approval, it was using players from three other schools (Mansion, Vaux & FLC). And now I’ll tell you what happened today. Shortly before the game began, Fitz coach Irv Sigler, a former Washington star and Division II National Player of the Year as a running back for Bloomsburg, came over and said to change No. 90 on the roster from Dante Simmons to Moses Tucker. OK, no sweat. Thanks, Irv. During the game, because of where the sun was located, I stayed on PC’s sideline (the visiting side at Gratz) and happened to notice that No. 90, who played VERY well at DE, by the way, was being called Dante or ‘Te for short by the Fitz kids who were working the chains. Finally, in the fourth quarter, during a timeout, No. 90 was not too far from where I was standing, so I called out to him and asked whether his name was Simmons or Tucker. His response: Simmons. Uh, oh. Something is goin’ ON here, and it can’t be good. I approached Sigler after the game and explained the sequence of events and said he needed to be straight about No. 90’s identity. He became quite quiet and said only, “To the best of my knowledge, he's Moses Tucker." Eventually, one of the assistants went to get No. 90 and bring him over. When I asked the kid his name this time, his response was “Moses Tucker.” Oh, baby! Who knows where THIS will go? Fitz’ entire athletic program is already on probation because of the earlier mess. Assuming something smelly did occur here, Brad Cashman, the PIAA’s executive director, said the FB program could be shut down for the rest of this season and all of next. The school’s other teams could also be whacked for a while. Incredible.

As a result of this report, the school district once again investigated, and on October 17, 2007, the Fitzsimons football team was suspended for the entire 2007 and 2008 seasons. Head coach, Irv Sigler, was banned from coaching any sport through the 2009-2010 school year.

You would think that the punishment was fair, mainly because just one week prior, the school, the AD and the head coach were all notified that they were on probation for the earlier incidents. And, by Ted Silary’s account, it sure seemed anything but innocent when they used an ineligible player just one week later. It seems to me that this coach, and likely the school’s administration, knew exactly what they were doing in the second incident.

So, a school is caught blatantly cheating and they are punished. That’s the end of it, right? Not so fast, bucko. Enter the PIAA and the appeal process. Fitzsimons appealed the decision of District 12, and during a December 15, 2007 board meeting, the deep thinkers of the PIAA board voted to set aside the penalties of District 12 and reduce the punishment to 2 years probation. It was reported that the PIAA felt that the Fitzsimons people, “principal Darryl Overton, athletic director Evan Scott, Sigler, his assistants - were new to their jobs and deserved a second chance.” This means that Fitzsimons will be able to take the field in 2008 and they will be coached by Irv Sigler.

I can only imagine how the appeals process went. I’ll try to recreate how I imagine this went:

PIAA: Fitzsimons broke the rules, not once, but twice. The second time, while on probation.

Fitzsimons: Yes, we broke the rules, but we’re new to our jobs and we have issues with comprehending rules that 600 other schools don’t seem to have issues with.

PIAA: But, you were already on probation when you broke the rules October 4, 2007. How do you explain that?

Fitzsimons: We didn’t fully understand what the school district meant when they told us we were on probation. We thought we just couldn’t associate with other teams on probations and we couldn’t carry guns. After all, that’s how probation usually works in this neighborhood.

PIAA: We’re sorry, but we haven’t heard any extenuating circumstances that would convince us to overturn the decision of District 12.

Fitzsimons: We don’t have any now, but we can have it when our lawyer files suit against the PIAA.

PIAA: There’s no need for that. How about if we just put you on probation for two years. This time, the probation just means that you need to use only eligible players. In addition, we’ll send a PIAA representative to your school to personally explain the rules to your entire administration. This way, you’ll know what is allowed and what is not allowed. How does that sound to you?

Fitzsimons: It sounds like a fair deal to us. Thank you.


My point here is that I’m sure the PIAA feared a lawsuit and folded like a cheap suit. It seems that the magic words for this organization are “I’ll sue you”. They have a loud bark, which they use quite often. But, if you know how to play them, their bite is about as bad as an old woman without her dentures. I won’t call them a joke, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

PCL Agrees on New Alignment for Football

It was reported in today’s Philadelphia Daily News that the Philadelphia Catholic League has agreed on a ‘new’ alignment for football <read story>. I quoted ‘new’ because although it may be a new concept to many people in the league, it was suggested by me back in August, right here in this space. <read blog entry>

The Divisions
So, the way it breaks down is like this. The Red Division will consist of the seven class AAAA schools, including St Joe Prep, Roman Catholic, Father Judge, Cardinal O’Hara, LaSalle, Archbishop Ryan and Monsignor Bonner. Northeast Catholic fell a dozen or so students short of AAAA, and will compete in the AAA division. The Blue is split into two divisions, based strictly on the PIAA classifications. The AAA division will have Archbishop Wood, Northeast Catholic, Conwell-Egan, Neumann-Goretti and Lansdale Catholic. (note: Lansdale Catholic will join the PCL in the 2008-2009 school year.) The AA division will consist of West Catholic, Archbishop Carroll, Bishop McDevitt, Cardinal Dougherty and Kennedy-Kenrick.

The Regular Season
There wasn’t much reported on exactly how the regular season would play out, but unless there are crossover games, each division will have a team looking for a game every week, as a balanced schedule doesn’t work with three divisions with an odd number of teams. This problem was addressed in my original entry back in August, where I suggested a 6 game regular season, with two crossover games between the AA and AAA divisions. But, that doesn’t look like it has been decided yet. The Red division would play a 6 game schedule too, but they’d have to find a game on their off week.

The Playoffs
Now, here’s where it gets hairy. The Red division will be relatively normal, with 4 of their 7 teams making the playoffs. The assumption here is that the top 4 teams will earn playoff spots based on their 6 game schedules. This is more like it was back in the day of the pre-colorful divisions. But, based on what was reported, both the AAA and the AA divisions will send 4 of their 5 teams to the playoffs. I know, you probably think that is a misprint. It’s not. The AAA and AA teams will play 4 or 6 game schedules and compete in a 5 team division, only to eliminate one team from the playoffs after 8 or 9 weeks of games.

I truly believe that this format is part of the “Participation Trophy Mentality” or as I like to say, “PTM syndrome.” You see, with PTM, everyone gets a chance to play, regardless of their ability. Just showing up “earns” you a chance to be called a winner, and you get a pat on the back because you can say, “We’re a playoff team.” Remember when being a playoff team meant something? Back in the day of the 8 team divisions, you needed to finish in the top 4 to earn a playoff spot. Rarely could a team find their way into the playoffs with a .500 or lower winning percentage. With the new setup, a team will only need to win 1 game to qualify for the playoffs. And more likely than not, that 1 win will be against the team that doesn’t qualify because they didn’t beat anyone. Why not have a playoff with the top 2 teams in the 5 team divisions? What harm would that be? That way, a team would pretty much be forced to win more than they lose to gain a playoff spot.

The only good that seems to have come out of all of this is the fact that there will be a city championship series once again, at three levels. But, each of those three divisions should be dominated by the PCL. I give the PCL “powers that be” credit for actually looking at the season objectively and coming to their senses with the three division format. Now, if they can just come to their senses and limit playoff teams to only those teams that deserve to be there and we’ll have a real good league in the future.

What Remains?
Finally, there are two outstanding questions to be decided, and both decisions are outside the control of the PCL. First, how will the Public League be aligned? In the article, it mentioned that there would be a city title game at three separate levels. But, since they joined the PIAA, the Public League has kept a single playoff format, crowning only one public league champion. Will this change going forward or will teams have the option of playing for a city title or a public league crown? Stay tuned. Also, there is the question of the PIAA state playoff system. For the past few years, the District 12 representative at the AAA level needed to be available for a state playoff game during week 12. With the intention of having a 9 week schedule and three weeks of pre-states playoffs, the District 12 rep wouldn’t be available until week 13. Of course, with the increased number of District 12 schools at the AA and AAA level, I don’t think it would be too far fetched to re-align the eastern bracket at those levels to allow for the District 12 championship to be held in week 12. That one we’ll save for another blog entry.

Is District 1 Better than the PCL in Football??

For what seems like ever, the debate has continued as to whether the Philadelphia Catholic League (PCL) is better than the football teams in District 1, or whether the football teams in District 1 are better than the teams in the PCL. It seems as though every year, someone points to a high profile game and uses the result of that game to justify their theory of which league is better. I’ll do a similar comparison, but with a more comprehensive look at the head to head competition between these two areas in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Because my personal bias leads me to believe that the Philadelphia Public is inferior to both the PCL and District 1, I won’t include those teams.

If you were to look at the head to head competition between the PCL and District 1 over the past 5 seasons (2003 – 2007), you might be surprised that there have been 98 games played between them. In those games, you would find that the PCL has only won 44, while the District 1 team has won the other 54. Does this mean that District 1 is better than the PCL? Not necessarily. But, let’s look a little closer as the data before we make a judgment.

First, I’ll break down the results by classification, starting with the AAAA (big schools). Of the 98 games played, 41 were between AAAA teams, and in those games, District 1 has won 26 to the PCL’s 15 wins. There have been 6 games involving two AAA teams. In those games, the PCL has only won 2 games. There have been 3 games involving two AA teams, and the PCL has won both of those games. The PCL does not have any “A” teams, so there is no comparison at that level.

All Games – District 1 leads 54-44 (.551 winning percentage)
PCL (AAAA) v D1 (AAAA) – District 1 leads 26-15
PCL (AAAA) v D1 (AAA) - PCL leads 1-0
PCL (AAAA) v D1 (AA) – PCL leads 1-0
PCL (AAA) v D1 (AAAA) – District 1 leads 7-4
PCL (AAA) v D1 (AAA) – District 1 leads 4-2
PCL (AA) v D1 (AAAA) – District 1 leads 12-6
PCL (AA) v D1 (AAA) – PCL leads 8-2
PCL (AA) v D1 (AA) – PCL leads 3-0
PCL (AA) v D1 (A) – PCL leads 4-3

But, if you look a little deeper into the numbers, you’ll find that every team in the PCL has played, at least, one District 1 team in the past 5 years. But, only half of the current 16 PCL teams had combined winning records against other PCL teams over those five years. If you look at just the games that were played by PCL teams with winning records over the past 5 years, you’ll see that there were 41 played, with the PCL holding a slight edge of 23-18. Conversely, PCL teams who have lost more PCL games than they have won over the past 5 seasons have only managed to go 21-36 in 57 games.

Individually, if you look at the breakdown by team, you’ll see which teams have been most successful in games involving the PCL and District 1::

PCL Teams
West Catholic 5-0
Wood 2-0
Roman 1-0
Kennedy-Kenrick 6-3
LaSalle 4-2
Prep 2-1
Carroll 7-5
O’Hara 3-3
Judge 3-4
Conwell-Egan 4-9
Dougherty 2-4
Ryan 2-6
Bonner 2-10
McDevitt 1-5
Neumann-Goretti 0-1
North Catholic 0-1

Looking at the head to head matchups between the PCL and District 1 by year, you’ll see that every other year, the leader switches or goes to even up.

PCL v District 1 by season (all games):
2003 – PCL (8-6)
2004 – District 1 (11-6)
2005 – Even (12-12)
2006 – District 1 (15-8)
2007 – Even (10-10)

In conclusion, it appears as though District 1 has the upper hand in head to head match ups with the PCL over the past 5 years. But, if you take out the Bonner games (Bonner hasn’t beaten anyone the past couple of years), you have a near virtual deadlock with District 1 having a slight advantage with a 44-42 record against PCL teams. But, next year, several things will change. The number of games between PCL and District 1 teams should be reduced, as the AA and AAA PCL teams will most likely not be able to play any non-league games next year. But, one important thing will change in the games that will be played at the end of the year. Those games will count, and the better team from the better league will move on to the next round of the PIAA playoffs.