There has been a lot of discussion over the last couple of years about a California State Championship in football. It's going to happen in the 2006 season and I believe it's a truly terrible idea.

First, and foremost, I would point to the devolution of high school basketball into the sewer.

Once upon a time, even in a megalopolis like Southern California, high school basketball was a contest involving kids from the neighborhood going to the local school. Somewhere along the line, the private schools figured out how to attract kids from a much wider area and the era of the perennial "talent-driven" power arose. One could point to Mater Dei as the leading example in the CIF Southern Section in the early years of this devolution. The concept spread to the public schools and Dominguez, Artesia and Simi Valley, under their former coaches, were not far behind. Of late, Westchester has been the leader in the City Section, along with Fairfax and, of course, Crenshaw.

Certainly the MD basketball coach is good but there is no question that MD, year-in, year-out, has considerably more talent than most other schools, and, unlike football, a single player can transform a basketball program from doormat to powerhouse in a single season.

Then along came Nike and the other companies that sponsor a coach or a travel team and, with all the money that got tossed around, certain schools became basketball meccas. Dominguez certainly is the leader in this category.

A surge of inter-district transfers, fake addresses, preposterous guardianships and the like have become common place in high school basketball. This occurred long before the advent of Mission Viejo's rise to prominence in football through the transfer route.

And where has all this led in basketball? The state championship tournaments in the top three divisions, almost every year, involve the same handful of teams. On the boys' side we see MD, Dominquez and Westchester on the top of the heap every year. The same things happens with the girls with Lynwood, Troy and Narbonne ending up on the top just about every year. Outside of a few very select schools, everyone else is playing for league titles. Sure, some team outside of the favored few may slip in for a Southern Section title now and then, but once the play starts for a spot in the state tournament, those teams are quickly eliminated.

The point is that in basketball, virtually every team at the top level in Southern California is basically an all-star travel team. The local competition is almost irrelevant, only the national level opponents (take a look at some of the Christmas tournaments) and the state championship matter.

The ethics issues are legion. A few years ago, Simi Valley had a starting five consisting entirely of kids who had not grown up in that area. Two or three of the kids were living with others who had been appointed guardians. A couple of the kids had been held back in junior high so they would be a year older and more developed than others in the same grade. There have been a number of these top programs where grades and residency were clearly falsified. Artesia comes to mind in that regard (they had a kid that was way past the age limit a few years ago).

These sorts of issues have existed in football for some time but at a relatively low level, lagging behind basketball by several years.

In my view, with a state championship, football will quickly go the way of basketball where a half dozen schools, with coaches and boosters who feel unconstrained by any rules, will quickly come to dominate the championship scene every year. You think that the flow of transfers to Mission Viejo was out-of-line the last few years? The number of transfers to some schools surely will increase despite any restrictions imposed by the CIF (the fake address and guardianship would probably be the favored devices) if there is a state championship at stake.

Think about it: in a diffused "championship" situation -- with 10 CIF sections statewide and several divisions within each section -- there is less incentive to move to a "big-time" program since so many can declare themselves "champion."

As it is now, there are way too many parents, boosters, coaches and administrators who will happily oblige any "talent's" desire to move to a program that is at a "championship" level. And that's when there are 13 "champions" just in the Southern Section alone! Can you imagine what would happen if those 50 or so "champions", state-wide are culled to 3 -- and only 6 teams compete for the titles? There very quickly will be a concentration of a hugely disproportionate number of the most talented kids in a very few schools -- many of which -- like too many of the basketball powers -- likely will be run by ethically-challenged coaches.

A second reason to squelch the state championship: it would kill interest in a lot of programs. Attendance is waning for football. Basketball attendance generally is very weak except for the high end tournaments and a lot of that attendance is simply basketball junkies and not fans from any particular team.

A third, though less compelling, reason for not having a state championship is simple bragging rights. Exasperating as it sometimes may be, half the fun of football is all the puffing and yapping between fans. Most all of that would disappear -- certainly on a local level. In many areas, local rivalries would simply disappear because one program would so dominate the field.

All-in-all, a state championship in a state this large with its three massive urban areas, where the ability to move between a huge number of schools is feasible, is really a bad idea. I would however support the consolidation of the Southern Section into fewer divisions. Basketball gets by with 10. Why does football need 13? But mark my words, within a few years of instituting state championships, a lot of teams which have a lot of support and interest will drop by the wayside and a handful of schools will gather up a hugely disproportionate percentage of the talent.

And how will the talent move? Let's say a kid is a soph at school 1 and wants to bail and enroll in school 2. He can do it under the current Southern Section rules. He just won't be able to play varsity sports during his junior year, a price that no good athlete is likely to be willing to pay.

I suspect we will quickly see "the cake and eat it too" syndrome (aka "its my right!") pop up -- that is, the kid transfers and tries gets to play right away.

Parents will try to pull this off in one of four ways. The oldest ruse is to fake a move. Face it, most of us can't afford to and do not want to make an unnecessary move. However, merely by listing some other address as the residence one may meet the CIF "change of address" request. School districts have gotten very touchy about this in recent years because of the fraud and funding implications, especially if its a "move" between, rather than within, districts. This is not a route the "smart" cheaters will try too often.

The second scam is to have someone else who lives in the desired attendance area become the kid's guardian. This has happened a LOT in HS basketball over the past several years. I haven't seen it too much in football but fully expect to see more of it. I don't know what rules the CIF has in place to curtail this practice.

The third scam is to claim some other cause that necessitates the move to a new school. Some of my favorites: "my kid is being bullied at school 1 [with the lousy football team] and I'm sure he would do much better and feel far more comfortable at school 2 [which just happens to be headed to the championship]." My response: "Yeah right -- your kid is going to an all white upper middle class suburban school with no gang or violence problems whatsoever and at 6'5" 290 is perfectly capably of taking care of himself. A related scam: "My kid really wants to be an actor/scientist/farmer and the other school has such a fine drama/science/ag department [and only incidentally a great football team] that he should be admitted there." Once again, yeah right! The kid is a complete moron, has no acting talent/interest in science/doesn't know a heifer from a Holstein etc. The follow up parent argument: "Oh and by the way he should be allowed to have the full school experience so in order to prevent a hardship shouldn't we allow my little boy to play sports too? I've seen this gem pulled off by one school several times for inter-district transfers and would have died laughing had I not been so put out about it.

Another one of the hardship stunts is to claim the kid has some sort of affliction that requires him to go to a specific school (its closest to the hospital, its closest to his doctor etc).

The final "scam" of course is simply to sue and claim that ones "rights" are being violated. And it seems like there's always some judge that is willing to create such a right.

Now of course there are perfectly legitimate ways to get around the CIF transfer rules. For example, one can simply enroll (under open enrollment) in the desired school as a freshman. However, if too many kids do that, there's gonna be a lot of gnashing of teeth beginning around the sophomore year because there's too much talent and not enough playing time to go around. Or the super coach leaves/retires etc. Then the kids are stuck. Of course one can always transfer and sit out a year of varsity but that would be just so un-Californian to be forced to wait for anything thus we end up back in lawsuit territory.

December 2005