By Anthony Bosco
Every year it seems like the same old story. Regardless of how right their picks may seem the previous December, teams in the Catholic High School Football League every September find themselves staring down the barrel of a schedule that is simply too tough.
Queens only has three teams in the league, St. Francis Prep, Holy Cross and Christ the King, and they represent just a fraction of the better than 20-team league, yet fault can be found with the schedule-making process employed by the CHSFL.
I certainly don’t question the motives of any of those involved, but point to the apparent lack of forethought in the process, which I believe relies too heavily on a team’s performance from the previous year and not what could reasonably be expected of the team the following year.
Simply put, there are no long-term contracts in high school sports, no guarantee of any kind that a star one year will even be in the school the next, regardless of what grade the player is in.
Two such instances are spelled out clearly this season with both Holy Cross and Christ the King, both of which lost key players in the off-season who were expected to return when the league seeded the team according to its power-rating system in December.
Christ the King is seeded sixth going into play this year, just one spot behind last year’s runner-up, St. Francis Prep. One of the main reasons CK was seeded so highly, despite the loss of topnotch players such as Rolando Garcia, Craig Nelson and Steven Shell, was the anticipated return of starting quarterback Jose Devurge.
Devurge, head coach Mike Cassidy said, was being “groomed” to be the starter again this year when his star decided to concentrate solely on his other sport, baseball.
As unfortunate as it may be for Cassidy and the rest of the Royals, Devurge’s choice is entirely his own, leaving Cassidy to scramble — pun certainly intended — for a new quarterback.
“I’m still at home waiting for the phone to ring and hear him saying ‘I’m going to play,’ ” Cassidy said quasi-jokingly. “The goal is to get them all to college, no matter how you get them there.
“They power rate these teams in December,” he added. “It’s like, how do you know what you have back next year?”
Holy Cross knew it was going to lose star running back Woody Aime to graduation, but head coach Tom Pugh was sure he had the perfect replacement in Kavell Gordon, a sophomore who stepped up ably when the senior Aime began to play both ways midway through the season. Gordon rushed for 144 yards against the powerhouse Monsignor Farrell Lions.
But Gordon unexpectedly left the school, leaving the Knights with a depleted offensive attack.
Luckily, because of the expected loss of Aime and tight end Doug Anderwkavich, Holy Cross was seeded No. 10 by the CHSFL, giving the team a much easier schedule than Christ the King.
Like last year when St. Francis Prep surpised many thanks to a weaker schedule, Holy Cross also could prosper with its low rating. Also helping the Knights will be returning quarterback Dan Meara, who Pugh is exceedingly high on in offensive coordinator Ronnie Harmon’s new system.
But the CHSFL’s lack of foresight also can be seen in the ranking of Xaverian at No. 9 and not higher, even though the Brooklyn team is returning several quality skilled players and the school’s junior varsity team claimed the league championship a year ago.
The same can be said of Fordham Prep, seeded No. 14 by the league. After suffering through a very difficult 2001 campaign, the Rams are returning some good players and 15 starters in all, almost guaranteeing that they will play better than their seed suggests.
All in all, the CHSFL system is a solid one, but if the league took more care with seeding teams in the off-season, there would be more parity in the league and teams would play a schedule which more accurately depicts its skill level.
On the public school side of the ball, the PSAL has made two key improvements to the way its playoffs will be structured. The league has gone back to a 16-team format from the 14-team version last year that almost had Bayside High School missing the playoffs and Far Rockaway going. The league is also instituting a pre-loaded points system.
Teams currently are ranked either 1, 3 or 5 based on strength, one being weakest and five being strongest. This new pre-loaded points system will give teams automatic points based on its strength of schedule, meaning a team such as Bayside, which is playing five 5s and two 3s, goes into the season with 36 points, points that are totaled at the end of the season to determine which 16 teams from the five boroughs make the citywide playoffs.
These upgrades may not perfect the PSAL system, but I think they certainly can help. This way teams that play strong schedules are rewarded for it appropriately, while not eliminating the possibility for a weaker team playing a weaker schedule to still make the playoffs.
I hope all these little issues fade away quickly and the kids can just get to playing some football. Because after all, that’s what it is all about.
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 130.
