city section showcase questions

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SoCalHoops High School News

City Section To Examine Impact
Of "Showcase" Games--(Jan. 20, 2000)

The Los Angeles Times this morning reported that LA City Section CIF Commissioner Barbara Fiege has announced that the Interscholastic Athletic Committee, the governing body within the LA City Section will meet this coming Monday, and one of the issues they will examine is whether the City Section will continue to allow their teams to participate in "showcase" events like the MLK events which took place this past weekend, including the adidas Double Pump Hoop Challenge played Saturday at Long Beach City College, and the Nike Dream Classic which took place on Monday at the Pyramid at Long Beach State.

Athletics Commissioner Barbara Fiege said the Games subcommittee will present recommendations to IAC regarding what position, if any the City Section should take in the future. The Times quoted Fiege as saying, "[IAC] will be looking at the impact these events have on the schools, the student body of each school, the financial implications of playing games somewhere other than the school sites and the JV teams that seem to get lost in the shuffle." Fairfax and Westchester boys' teams played Western League games, back to back at the Pump and Nike events, while Manual and Crenshaw both played non-league games on Monday at the Nike Dream Classic. The Washington girls team participated in the UC Riverside all-girls MLK event.

The fact that some members of the committee want to examine the "issue" of showcase events at all is somewhat curious, particularly given the fact that one this past weekend an entire City Section League (the Marine League) sponsored their own "showcase" event at Harbor City College, playing boys and girls league games, but not featuring any JV games. Why the "issue" would arise is curious, but there are also clearly other issues involved, including sharing of gate receipts, travel, accessibility for local fans, and the opportunity for players to play at larger venues and in front of more fans and the opportunity to have more college coaches assembled to observe players at a single venue.

We don't have enough information about the real issues that will be examined, nor the positions which are being advocated by the members of the committee, but it seems safe to say that the Southern Section doesn't seems to share whatever these "concerns" about such events. For those who were at the Nike Dream Classic on Monday, it was fairly obvious that the CIF Southern Section was clearly supporting the event, in a very visible way, and indeed most of the VIP section at the Nike Dream Classic was reserved for CIF Southern Section officials.

More on this as details become available.