This week we have some spring sports honors and awards to update you on, as well as recent CIF San Diego Section actions, which directly impact Coronado High School, to review. Then we’ll discuss the impact of Reggie Bush’s actions on the USC football program.

Islander Girls Lacrosse Honors and Awards

At their recent post-season banquet, the CIF Runners-up, under the direction of Head Coach Jessica Battle announced their award winners. They included: Most Improved – Cory DeMarco; the Unsung Hero Award – Brianna Clifford and the Coaches’ Award - Anna Turpit.

Several Islanders earned additional honors, including four athletes being named to All-CIF Teams. Michaela Guerrera, Lauren Maack and Coco O’Brien were named to the All-CIF First Team. Kaitlyn Couture was named to the All-CIF Second Team.

The list expanded to include All-City Conference honorees, with Alex Reidy, O’Brien, Maack, Guerrera and Turpit named to the First Team. Lainey Mebust and Couture earned Second Team All-City Conference recognition. Guerrera was named City Conference Player of the Year.

O’Brien earned recognition from the ‘San Diego Union-Tribune’ as a member of the All-Academic First Team, which recognizes both her GPA (4.22) and her athletic accomplishments.

CHS Boys Lacrosse Recognition

The CHS Boys Lacrosse Team, which entered the season as the defending CIF champions, had another fine season in 2010, playing in the CIF semi-finals. The post season honors included the following team awards: Team MVP – Eddie Vita; Ironman Award, Alumni Award and ISF Award – Kevin Seifert; Midfielder of the Year – Kodie Englehart; Attackman of the Year – Kyle Runyon; Defender of the Year and Bill Parry Award Winner – Peter Zeller; and Coaches’ Awards – Jacob Lee and Austin Branch.

All-American honors were accorded to Vita, Englehart and Runyon. All-CIF First Team recognition went to Englehart and Runyon, with Vita named to the All-CIF Second Team.

Several Islanders earned All-City Conference honors, with Vita, Englehart and Runyon named to the First Team. Second Team All-City Conference honors went to Seifert, Alex Bookout and Dane Farguson. City Conference Honorable Mention recognition went to Zeller, Billy Schmitt and Sergio Flores.

Englehart was named All-City Conference Player of the Year. Vita was named to the ‘San Diego Union-Tribune’ All-Academic First Team with a 3.57 GPA.

The Boys Lacrosse Junior Varsity Awards were presented as follows: Team MVP – Reis Stanley; Attackman of the Year – Jake Lindee; Midfielder of the Year – Daren Owen; Defender of the Year – Kevin Fahey; Most Improved – Michael Stark; and Coaches’ Award – Paul Rodriguez.

Boys Swimming Post-Season Honors

Congratulations to senior Andrew Ireland, who was named captain of the ‘San Diego Union-Tribune’s’ All-Academic Swimming Team by virtue of his 4.15 GPA and his fine swim season.

Ireland also made the All-CIF First Team and was joined on that squad by Rex Butler, Brennan Casey, Tommy Schofer and Van Burgess.

Butler, Casey, Schofer and Ireland teamed to set a new CIF All-Division record in the 200 free relay in a time of 1:25.97. The previous record was set in 1993 by Mt. Carmel High School. Burgess replaced Casey on the Islanders victorious Division II 400 free relay.

Cross Country Training Meeting Slated

If you are going to be a successful cross country runner in the fall, then now is the time to start your training regimen. Wednesday, June 16, 2010, there will be an organizational meeting at 1110 G Avenue for interested runners. That is the home of Bill Davies, who along with George Green, run the CHS Cross Country program. More information is available at http://islandertrack.com or by calling Coach Green at 435-3633.

CIF San Diego Section Expands Playoffs in Several Sports

During the CIF San Diego Section Board of Managers meeting Tuesday, June 8, 2010, the governing body of high school athletics in the area voted to expand the boys and girls water polo playoff divisions from two to three. The boys and girls lacrosse playoffs were expanded from one division to two. In a prior Board of Managers meeting held April 27, 2010 there was a unanimous vote cast for the sports of baseball, softball, boys’ soccer and girls’ soccer to expand from four divisions to five.

Taking water polo first, there are currently 58 schools (out of 117 high schools in the county) which sponsor the fall sport of boys’ water polo. A total of 54 schools field the sport of girls’ water polo, which competes during the winter months.

Water polo is a unique sport in many ways, including the fact that the power schools in the section have always been in Division II and include Coronado, The Bishop’s School, usually La Jolla, with those three schools joined recently by Cathedral Catholic. Many of the larger schools by enrollment have competitive programs, but don’t have the ongoing period of continued excellence of the four schools just mentioned.

The vote to expand the water polo playoffs now places the four best water polo programs in the county, all of whom compete in the Western League, into Division III. Of the 16 teams in the Boys Division II Playoff bracket in 2009, only Mar Vista, Ramona, Point Loma, Serra and Valhalla will continue to compete in Division II. Dropping down from Division I into Division II are Grossmont, Patrick Henry, Westview, Mt. Carmel and Scripps Ranch. The Falcons from Scripps Ranch, who also compete in the Western League, would appear to benefit the most from the new divisional alignment. They would be the early book favorite to win the revised Division II for both the boys and girls.

CHS Boys Water Polo Head Coach Randy Burgess took a philosophical approach to the realignment. “I have mixed reactions. First, we are dealing with the dilution factor. We already have a significant gap between the top end schools and the next tier. My hope at this point is that by expanding, we give an opportunity to schools to develop a little more and help the sport get a little stronger. We have had a lot of elite aquatics athletes come from here (San Diego County) so we’re doing something right. With water polo expanded, maybe we will have the chance for more kids to swim competitively. I hope that will happen too. I think the theory behind it is a good one and I hope it serves a purpose. There will be a couple of steps backwards at first. There will be some very young and inexperienced kids and coaches in the programs.”

Burgess, who runs water polo camps on a local, regional and national level, is willing to lend a hand. “I will reach out and help any coaches I can. I would love to do a clinic along with some of the other programs. The question is will they be able to sustain a program year in and year out. In theory it is a great opportunity for our sport to grow.”

On the lacrosse side, fewer schools sponsor the sport, with 41 boys’ teams and 36 girls’ teams fielded this year in the San Diego Section. Coronado has been among the elite high school programs on both the boys and girls sides since the sport first came under the CIF umbrella in the 2001-02 school year. Lacrosse playoffs will go from one 16-team bracket, to two eight-team brackets. Quoting from the original CIF proposal that changed the playoff system, “There is a disparity in ability level that is impossible for new teams or teams with a smaller student population to compete fairly and safely.”

The net result of this vote, which was 16-1 with Coronado Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Felix casting the lone dissenting vote, is that the Islanders figure to be Gulliver among the Lilliputians next year, in both Boys and Girls Division II.

Islander Girls Lax Head Coach Jessica Battle isn’t a fan of the new alignment. “I think it (going to two divisions) kind of stinks. The competition won’t be that great in Division II. We have the ability to win the whole thing (one playoff division) and we won’t be able to petition up (compete in Division I) for the next couple of years. It would be nice to win the Division II championship, but it won’t mean the same thing. If we play the way we can play, it should be a cake walk. We’ll still play the other tough teams, but it is still unfortunate.”

If anything the Coronado Girls Lacrosse program will be deeper in talent than in 2010 when the Islanders were CIF runners-up for a third time. “We have a lot of great middle school players who are coming up,” said Battle. “We have three girls who will likely be on the varsity. Sara Anderson and Rachel Brennan both play low ‘d’ (the lacrosse version of a defensive back) and we have a girl named Martha Byrne who just moved here and is a left-handed midfielder.”

So, the rich get richer, but for now Coronado will have to perform their magic in Division II. And just kick every Division I team that will schedule them during the regular season.

Reggie Bush Deals Serious Blow to USC Athletic Department

“If the allegations are true that Bush or Bush’s family received money from an agent while he was playing at USC, it is now USC’s fault due to the institutional responsibility concept. If an improper payment link can be established by NCAA investigators, then USC will have to forfeit all of their victories from last season and will likely have to return (or not be allowed to accept) the approximately $14-17 million they earned from the 2006 BCS Championship game played in the Rose Bowl vs. Texas.

Further, Bush may have to return the Heisman Trophy, emblematic of the nation’s best collegiate football player. Keep in mind that this is not a case tried in court, but rather through the NCAA’s labyrinth judicial system, which has unique rules, to say the least.”

That is a verbatim quote from the ‘Nado Natterings’ column that appeared in the May 1, 2006 issue of “The Coronado Eagle & Journal.” Those two paragraphs have a Nostradamus-type ring to them, wouldn’t you say?

Over the weekend, Your Natterer downloaded a little ditty entitled the ‘University of Southern California Public Infractions Report,’ which runs 65 pages long and fought my way through the entire tome. The report carries the mellifluous title, “Unethical Conduct; Violations of Amateurism Legislation; Failure to Report Knowledge of NCAA Violations,” followed by the recitation of seven NCAA Bylaws that had been broken.

As the report notes, this isn’t the Trojans first visit to the NCAA woodshed, as the USC football team had infractions cases in 1986, 1982, 1959 and 1957. But version 5.0 in 2010 is the big one.

So you know, pages numbered 4-40 (inclusive) exclusively feature Reggie Bush and USC football. Having worked in college sports in the past, any one of the violations in the 37 pages devoted to Bush are serious, but taken in their totality they are worthy of the penalties dished out to USC. After the NCAA penalties were made public, USC announced they would appeal some of the harsher restrictions.

The football program wasn’t the only culprit in the investigation as the Trojan basketball program had a Bush Lite in O.J. Mayo, who accepted cash to play hoops for one season on his way to the NBA. USC Women’s Tennis got a slap on the wrist, well, just because.

But back to Bush. The NCAA does not have the power of subpoena, so the infractions the Indianapolis-based organization found and delineated relating to Bush are all the more impressive in their scope. Bush’s family accepted round-trip airplane tickets to the Orange Bowl in 2005; Bush accepted cash to purchase a new vehicle and later a sound system and rims for the car; two nights lodging in Las Vegas were paid for; and the biggie, Bush’s family lived cost-free in a $750,000 home for more than one year. That will give you a feel for the depth of the infractions and that is just three pages worth.

‘Institutional control’ is the founding principle of the NCAA, the governing body of collegiate athletics. The fact that USC was a ‘repeat violator’ means the penalties were more serious and far-reaching that they might have been otherwise.

Here’s the bottom line; USC’s football team loses 10 scholarships per year for the next three years and cannot appear in postseason bowl competition for two years. The retroactive penalties of the loss of all games in the 2004 post season and the entire 2005 season are unfortunate, but deserved. There are more penalties, but those are the major ones.

The scholarship loss places an enormous amount of pressure on new football Head Coach Lane Kiffin. He simply cannot afford to award scholarships to players who won’t pan out on the field or in the classroom. The depth and quality of the team’s talent will likely decline in the long term and a team that was 9-4 in 2009, hardly up to the expectations of the Trojan alumni, faces serious rebuilding issues.

If the on-field product takes another backward step in 2010, revenues are likely to be adversely affected. Football’s gigantic income stream helps cover the expenses of eight other men’s sports and 10 women’s sports at USC, all of which with the possible exception of men’s basketball lose money. There will be a lot less cash to throw around the Athletic Department in the foreseeable future.

Among the NCAA’s parting shots to USC, found on page 63, is this bit of verbiage. “The Committee on Infractions advises the institution that it should take every precaution to ensure that the terms of the penalties are observed. The committee will monitor the penalties during their effective periods. Any action by the institution contrary to the terms of any of the penalties or any additional violations will be considered grounds for extending the institution’s probationary period or imposing more severe sanctions or may result in additional allegations and findings of violations.”

In other words, the USC athletic administration has hundreds if not thousands of hours of paperwork ahead of them that they will have to file with the NCAA to show the Trojans have re-established control over their athletic department. Big Brother is watching and he’s not pleased.