SoCalHoops Fall League News

ARC Fall Leagues Starts
Tomorrow, Sunday, Oct. 1--(Sept. 30, 2000)

There are a number of fall leagues taking place all over SoCal for boys' high school teams.  Some of them, like Issy Washington's Slam N Jam Fall League have been around for years, while others come and go.  There are several such leagues which have sprung up over the years around LA and Orange Counties, a couple which have taken place in the San Gabriel and Inland Empire area, and a few more at some of the local JC's who open their doors up to create high school leagues for local teams.    But one of the oldest fall high school leagues, one which rivals the Slam N Jam in terms of the number of years it's been in existence, is ARC, or American Roundball Corporation's Fall High School Varsity League.

While ARC as a whole features leagues with more than 130 teams at various levels, both boys and girls teams at all age levels, at the high school level, things are much more modest, and the teams are usually just local San Fernando Valley HS teams, with an occasional team or two from outside the region. This year there 12 teams competing in two different leagues, including several from outside the LA area, but for the most part, the two varsity leagues (Varsity I & Varsity II) are made up of local San Fernando Valley teams. 

Partly because ARC doesn't own it's own facility, and partly because it is therefore dependent on local high school coaches to secure gyms, ARC has never followed the practice of keeping all of the high school teams at one venue, and the teams also don't compete in consecutive contests.  Local high school coaches want to play all of their games at their own gyms, which means that North Hollywood's games are always at NH at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, Notre Dame's games are always at Notre Dame on Sunday morning, etc. . . Which means that games are always spread out all over the place, and at various times of the day.

The result is that you can walk into one of the ARC venues awaiting the start of a high school varsity game,  and wind up watching a 7-year old girls' game instead.  Or a 14 year old boys' game if you're lucky.  Or maybe even another Varsity game.  But there are no assurances, and the schedules jump all over the place each week.  Not, as they said on Seinfeld, that there's anything wrong with that, as long as you understand what it is you're getting. . . .

The other result, is that this is not terribly conducive to scoping out high school opponents you might be playing next week in the league, nor does it really develope any sense that the games are actually "league" play.    It also gives you a sense that the games aren't meant to involve an extremely high level of competition, and for the most part that's probably a good thing, because they really aren't,  which is borne out by some of the rules (many would say "oddball" rules) which ARC utilizes for its younger age groups, but which continue to be applied to the high school division.  Rules like games using a running clock, except the last two minutes of play only;  like having to sub out players each 8 minutes;  like only being able to make free substitutions during the last 8 minutes of running time;  like a rule which provides that if a team has less than 10 players no player can play three consecutive 8 minute periods. . .stuff like that, which might make sense if you're talking about 10 year olds, but which really doesn't make a lot of sense to us at the high school level. . . but at least everyone is assured of at least 16 minutes of playing time.    Defense also must be man to man, although more often than not, in the high school division teams wind up playing zone and this rule changes all the time and no one can ever remember whether it does or doesn't apply. . .

In short, ARC's fall league is probably not the place to go to see players if you are a college coach, because the style of play and the rules are just not conducive to seeing guys at their best. . . the league is also not NCAA Certified, meaning that NCAA D-I coaches can't attend anyway. . . . but it's still a fun and low-pressure way to watch some of the better players in the San Fernando Valley getting back together with their high school teams and to prepare for the upcoming season.   And the league is also a nice way for players to get a run in on a Sunday morning, afternoon, or evening, and still get their homework done without spending hours in the gym. . . .  Of course, many of these guys will stay in other gyms and work all day, but those who don't just participate and go.   And with games taking place all over the Valley, and at different venues,  the atmosphere is pretty relaxed and you'd almost think these were pickup games if it wasn't for the  presence of the refs (who sometimes treat the games that way too). 

In short, the ARC Varsity Leagues get started tomorrow, and we've got the schedules as well as a list of the teams participating (including a "translation table" below so you can tell which teams are which).  Some of the top players from the region will be:

Cody Pearson (6'-4" Sr. SG) Notre Dame
Ruben Sanchez (6'-0" Sr.PG) Notre Dame
David Gale (6'-0" Jr. PG) Buckley
Colin Ward-Henninger (6'-4" Sr. SF/SG) Buckley
Tristan Siessa (6'-1" So. G/F) Buckley
Adam Allegro (6'-5" Sr. SF) Agoura
Johnny Grey (6'-1" Sr. G) Agoura
Trenton Cleveland (6'-2" Jr. SG) Burbank
Romeo Joudi (6'-1" Sr. G) Burbank
Nick Chitta (6'-2" Sr. F) Burbank
Jamal Flanagan (6'-1" Sr. G) AV Christian
Tony Johnson (6'-1" Sr. G) Quartz Hill
John Cho (6'-2" Sr. G) AV Christian
Sidney Melvin (6'-3" Sr. G) Desert
Matt Wallman (6'-6" Sr. F) Moorpark
Austin Scott (5'-8" Jr. G) Harvard-Westlake
Craig Weinstein (5'-11 Jr. PG/SG) Harvard-Westlake
Brice Taylor (6'-0" Fr. G) Harvard-Westlake

This is, of course, just a partial list of guys who will be playing and one of the nice things about watching these teams in this league is getting a sort of sneak peak on some of the newer players, freshmen, sophs and others who will be playing their first season of varsity ball. 

Here's what we know:

The Game Sites above are listed using the following abbreviation table:

The teams also use nicknames only (to comply with CIF Southern Section rules), but here's who's really who:

 
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