GMC Hoops Endorses Most Of Ledger Plan For Realignment
Good morning everyone. If you haven’t read the Star-Ledger, or don’t have one, you may want to check out the Sunday morning edition. In the paper this Sunday is an interesting article on how to realign the various conferences in response to the recent proposal made by several schools in the Sussex County Interscholastic League and the NNJIL to separate the Public and Parochial schools. In recent years, the divide between Public and Parochial has become a deep chasm particularly in the NNJIL during football season where powerhouse teams such as Don Bosco Prep, Bergen Catholic, and St. Joseph’s of Montvale have steamrolled opponents. At the beginning last month, a vote was taken at the Pines Manor over on Route 27 in Edison, and the proposal to separate Public and Parochial schools statewide was narrowly rejected by several votes.
Since that time, the NJSIAA has appointed a 34 person League and Conference Committee to explore this issue in depth, and come up with a proposal in September for realignment across the Garden State. The Sunday Star-Ledger article proposes the changes to be made should only affect the Northern half of the state including the following counties: Somerset, Hunterdon, Warren, Sussex, Morris, Union, Essex, Hudson, Bergen, and Passaic. Conferences affected would be the Skyland Conference, Watchung Conference, Mountain Valley Conference, Iron Hills Conference, Colonial Hills Conference, Northern Hills, NNJIL, Hudson County Interscholastic League, Bergen County Scholastic League, and Bergen-Passaic Scholastic League among others.
I won’t go into detail about every aspect of the plan, but in basic terms, it does follow the models set forth by the Greater Middlesex Conference, and the Shore Conference, two super leagues created within the past twenty years. It takes all the conferences in Northern New Jersey, and combines them into several super conferences aligned by traditional rivalries, school size, and competitive balance. Overall, I like the plan. Perhaps there are some, who think that because of the fact that the proposal doesn’t touch the GMC is the reason. No it isn’t although I think the conference, for the most part, should be left alone. Despite the fact that St. Joseph’s, Cardinal McCarrick, and Bishop Ahr have the ability to pick from a bigger array of talent, they haven’t dominated Middlesex County sports, especially basketball. Take for instance St. Joseph’s.
Since the creation of the Middlesex County Tournament back in 1965, and through the time it became the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament back in 1986, the Falcons have reached the GMCT final 13 times, and only won three titles: 1993, 1998, and 1999. In addition, Cardinal McCarrick, which dominated the Gold Division since a year or so after current head coach, Joe Lewis arrived there for the 1995-96 season, moved up into the GMC Blue for the start of the 2002-03 season, and after several years of being the top dog there, is poised to move up into the GMC White for the start of the 2008-09 season. The Eagles were looking to do it a couple years ago, but both Lewis and girls hoops coach, and South Amboy legend, Lynn Ust wanted to make the jump together, and the girls team wasn’t ready at that time.
GMC Hoops endorses much of the Ledger plan. The GMC has done a good job overall along with the Shore in setting the blueprint for the rest of the state to follow. It’s not perfect, but it is much better than what is seen up in the extreme Northern portion of the state. Most importantly though, it preserves many of the geographical rivalries while giving all the schools a fair chance at being competitive. The one major concern with it is this: Why change the Skyland Conference? Covering Hunterdon, Somerset, and Warren Counties, the Skyland Conference does follow the model set forth by the GMC and the Shore. The conference is currently aligned with four divisions. Two are set aside for bigger schools and split mostly by geography. The Delaware East Division is made up of Somerset County teams: Bridgewater-Raritan, Franklin, Hillsborough, Immaculata, Montgomery, and Watchung Hills while the Delaware West Division consists of big schools in Hunterdon and Warren except for Ridge. Moving over to the Raritan Division, you have mid-sized schools speckled across the three counties: Bernards, Delaware Valley, Hackettstown, North Plainfield, and Somerville while the Valley, the league’s equivalent to the GMC Gold in terms of school size, has Belvidere, Bound Brook, Manville, North Warren, and South Hunterdon.
Why merge the Skyland with the Watchung and Mountain Valley? This did almost happen a while back. Earlier in the decade, a proposal was made to create a Super Conference by combining these conferences since the Watchung was slowly beginning to fade, and teams such as Rahway, Union Catholic, Cranford, and Summit were moving into other conferences such as the Mountain Valley and Iron Hills Conference. However, the plan was voted down. Shortly after that, Franklin applied for admittance into the Greater Middlesex Conference, but after originally having enough votes to get in, the Warriors were turned down. Now it is true that teams such as Bridgewater, Watchung Hills, Franklin, and Immaculata would be a good fit in terms of competition. The Panthers of Bridgewater-Raritan have demonstrated time and time again in recent years that they can play with the urban school powers of the world such as Linden, Elizabeth, and Plainfield. However, traveling to Union is perhaps better than hauling out to Phillipsburg, but with Route 22 the way it is now, it may be just as big a headache. In addition, many of the natural geographic rivalries dating back to the Mid-State Conference are destroyed.
Keep the Skyland the way it is except add Mount St. Mary’s for girls, Pingry and Gill St. Bernards, and place them in either the Raritan or Valley Divisions. Then, merge the Watchung and Mountain Valley, and arrange that by school size since it will be a lot easier from a travel standpoint, and you’ll still have your super conference with the traditional rivalries maintain, and in some cases like Rahway, Summit, Union Catholic, and Cranford, have them renewed. Just set up the conference like the GMC. If Rahway, Summit, UCHS, Cranford don’t want to compete with the Lindens, Plainfields, and Elizabeths of the world, put them in a division much like the GMC White. Let’s face facts though, as competitively balanced as the GMC is, there are still teams such as Edison, J.P. Stevens (except this year, and probably next), Old Bridge, and Woodbridge that get trampled by other teams in the GMC Red, but never move down. However, if you’re going to want to keep it the way it is originally proposed, move Immaculata into the Campbell, Roselle Catholic into the Wilson or Blazejowski Division since those teams don’t object to RCHS being in the Mountain Valley, where they are mostly from, and again move Pingry and Gill St. Bernards into either the Robeson or Ringo Divisions.
The plan put forth by the Ledger is still a great first step. The people there behind the plan know what they’re talking about since they’ve been covering interscholastic sports for decades, and are more in touch with this topic because they see it first hand. Let’s see what the NJSIAA will come up with.