Arcata and South Fork fold Varsity Programs

[gator19]

Arcata and South Fork have folded their varsity football programs for 2010. There is little chance of them bringing these teams back this year. This really hurts other teams in Humboldt County because they play these teams twice in their leagues. Eureka is now stuck with an 8 game schedule and has to scramble to find games last second. Same with Ferndale, St. Bernard and so on. Terrible news.

Also Eureka will not be considered a league champion at the end of the year because you have to have 4 teams to qualify as a league. The HDN-L Big 4 Conference will now only have 3 football teams. This could cost Eureka home playoff games as league champions get first rights at hosting playoff games.

I posted the article from the Times Standard below.

[gator19]

Vacant Field: lack of players may result in no varsity football for South Fork; Arcata in same situation
Ahron Sherman/For The Times-Standard
Posted: 08/27/2010 01:29:18 AM PDT


This is the time of year when high school football coaches all over Humboldt County put in their final preparations before the regular season starts, run their last few preseason practices and rack their brains, searching for an advantage over their week-one opponents.

Not the South Fork Cubs' head coach Andy Olsen, though. He doesn't have enough players to fill his varsity team.

The Arcata High program finds itself in a similar situation.

Humboldt-Del Norte commissioner Charlie Lakin said Thursday that Arcata's Principal Lisa Gray told him the Tigers will not have a varsity team due to the lack of players. This puts the Big 4 in a bind because that leaves the league without the minimum amount (four) of teams required to crown a league champion and earn an automatic berth in the North Coast Section Playoffs.

If the three-team scenario plays out, the champion must apply for an at-large berth.

However, Arcata's head coach Ray Watson said he's still hopeful to get enough players before the season starts.

South Fork's enrollment declined over the past few years, so coaches knew something like this could happen. But they never thought they would be this strapped for players.

Out of the 16 senior boys at South Fork, two of them showed up for preseason football practice. Three juniors, five sophomores and eight freshmen showed up as well.

Of those 18 players, five have varsity experience, one has JV experience and two are first-year


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football players. Furthermore, Olsen said some of these kids don't have the physical size to compete at the varsity level.
”I can't pull these guys with zero experience up to varsity,” said Olsen. “Some of them are only 5-foot-4 and 110 pounds.”

Monday, Aug. 30 is the first day of school at South Fork, and the last chance for players to show up to practice before Olsen pulls varsity's plug.

Although the Cubs are left without a varsity football team in the wake of this decision, the rest of the Humboldt-Del Norte conference, especially teams in the Little 5, will need to scramble to fill the holes in their schedules.

Conference Commissioner Charlie Lakin said the Little 5 must maintain at least four teams in the league in order to crown a champion. League champions receive automatic North Coast Section playoff bids. Without a league champion, the team with the best record would need to apply for an at-large berth.

Scheduling becomes the biggest concern for other H-DN teams with South Fork's withdrawal imminent. Finalized schedules are hard to change when teams drop, said Lakin.

A team doesn't need to play a minimum amount of games for their records to count, so why is it important for teams to fill their schedules?

”Teams need to play,” said Lakin. “What do I do with back-to-back bye weeks? Practice for two weeks?”

St. Bernard's head coach Jeremy Wardrip said he wants to fill the two vacant slots in his schedule. The Crusaders' bye comes in week three, and they're scheduled to play the Cubs in week two, so Wardrip said they have a few options because they can fill two of the three open weeks with games and just move their official bye to the open week. If the Crusaders are unable to fill the opened slots, Wardrip said as a last resort he'll keep players sharp with intrasquad games.

”It's tough to fill games this late in the offseason,” said Wardrip. “But we're looking at the cup as half-full.”

Like Wardrip, Ferndale's coach Kim Jorgensen said he'll scramble to fill his schedule. But if he can't find a game he'll treat the open slot as just another bye week, with normal practices and an onus on getting better.

Hoopa Valley was scheduled to play South Fork twice this season. Warriors' coach Marty Wilkes said he'll look to fill the schedule, but he wants teams to come to the valley. He doesn't want to be stuck with seven away games if replacement teams refuse to play in Hoopa.

He's worried about the league as well.

”We need South Fork in the Little (5),” said Wilkes. “(With them in) it makes us a better league.”

Despite South Fork's disappointment, all is not lost for the Cubs. Olsen will keep his JV together, get the inexperienced kids some experience and look to re-load next year.

”It's not what we want to do,” said Olsen. “But this is the best course of action to keep (South Fork) football (around in the future).”

[scobserver]

thanks, gator, for the news. It is disappointing the article did not really go into reasons.... South Fork enrollment is decliining, true....is it any smaller than the other HDN small schools? Arcata is much bigger, what is their enrollment?

Gator, I am guessing that Arcata turnout is small due to lack of success over the years and the student body is maybe more AFFLUENT than other schools, and these kids play other sports or none at all, involved in other activities? I throw out that guess Arcata must have a high enrollment of kids whose parents work at the college there.......how is that theory?

[football415]

Sad day for Humboldt Del Norte.