Politicians have no place in high school football
Newark Mayor James files ridiculous lawsuit; it proves system works in Hudson County
Chalk this one up to bordering on the ridiculous.
I really thought I heard it all in my 20 years of sports writing. I guess I was wrong.
Last Monday morning, in an unprecedented move, Newark Mayor Sharpe James filed for an injunction in Essex County Superior Court, trying to block this weekend’s NJSIAA state football playoffs because Newark West Side did not qualify for the playoffs.
The reason for the injunction was simple: James felt that West Side deserved to make the state playoffs, in North Jersey Section 2, Group III, because West Side had a 6-2 record, which was a better record than or equal to five other teams that qualified in the bracket.
For example, Newark Shabazz and East Orange have 4-4 records, while Clifford Scott and Hackettstown all own 5-3 records. Scotch Plains has a similar 6-2 mark. Based on records alone, James feels that West Side belongs.
James feels that the NJSIAA’s power point system, which includes a team’s winning percentage in accordance to the school’s enrollment group classification, is unfair to urban schools.
"The power point system is inherently unfair to urban schools in general," James said in a statement. "It makes a mockery out of won-loss records, in favor of overall student populations. Football tournaments should be won on the gridiron, not on a computer spreadsheet."
Added James, "Our lawsuit is aimed at this injustice that has been done to our school. Five teams with inferior won-loss records are going into the playoffs because they amassed more power points. This is an absurdity."
James, who was re-elected as a State Senator as well Tuesday, representing the 29th District, said that he plans to introduce legislation that will address the "inequity of the state association’s system."
To all of it, I say one thing.
Bunk.
Or perhaps, here’s one that’s better.
Baloney.
Let me get this straight. The NJSIAA, which has been using the power point system since 1976, is now having its system questioned by a politician? A politico who actually took the time and effort to file for an injunction in Superior Court over the power point system? Are you kidding me?
Well, first and foremost, here’s why this lawsuit is more absurd than the power point system.
In the same bracket – the same exact Section 2, Group III playoff bracket that West Side was unfairly "excluded from" – sits Malcolm X. Shabazz High School of Newark, NJ. Yes, the same municipality that Mayor James governs. How is the system unfair to West Side, but it’s fair to Shabazz?
Here’s more: Is it unfair to urban schools? Clifford Scott High School, which resides in East Orange, and East Orange High School, which I believe is in East Orange, also qualified. The last time I drove through East Orange, I think that was an urban area I was seeing.
The big problem I have is with politicians who stick their noses where they don’t belong. How about governing the municipality that you were elected to serve and leave the business of high school sports to the people who run high school sports? The two should not meet.
It reminded me of a local situation two years ago, when a certain former mayor of a city that is only one square mile in size managed to grab local headlines over a sports issue. At that time, the former mayor called a local sportswriter a "racist" because of the team the sportswriter chose to vote as No. 1 in a statewide football poll.
Sound familiar?
Politics didn’t belong in high school sports then. And it certainly doesn’t now.
Sharpe James should mind his business and get on with more important things, like the restoration of his town. I believe billion-dollar developments are more important than high school football playoffs any day.
Leave it alone. The NJSIAA’s power point system, albeit not perfect, has worked in getting the best football teams the chance to play for a state sectional championship for the last 25 years. That’s a quarter-century of high school football that has gone on without the tarnish of a headline-seeking politician.
The NJSIAA, which shoots itself in the foot time and time again on its own, doesn’t need hassles in one of the its systems that truly works. It’s fine for now. I still think that crowning 20 teams as state champions is a bit too much, but the system works and has worked for quite some time, even after extending the playoff brackets to include eight teams three years ago.
Have there been times when worthy teams have been left out of the playoff mix? Sure. I remember the 1987 North Bergen team that was 8-1 and couldn’t go to the playoffs. That omission was almost criminal, but it happened.
Union Hill lost only one game more than one season during the 1990s and was left home each time. One time, the Hillers missed the playoffs by a half-point. That’s right. Less than a full point. But everyone knew that the power point system was the way to qualify for the playoffs and they lived with it, as painful as it was.
NJSIAA associate director Jim Loper put it best when he said in response to the James lawsuit: "Everybody knows what the rules are."
Bingo. Rules are rules. It’s the way that high school football has decided its state sectional champions for more than two decades. And it will be the way for now, until some sort of dramatic realignment plan gets introduced again, but I frankly can’t see that happening.
The funny part about this lawsuit is that I didn’t hear anyone from West Side’s football program complaining, just a politician.
That’s because the West Side football staff knew the rules, like Loper said, before the season began. And if they wanted to qualify for the state playoffs, West Side could have done something about it. Like win just one more game.
Oh, by the way, here’s another one for Sharpe James. Take a look out your window, just a few miles to the East, and you’ll see Hudson County, an area that has done well with the power point system for years and has done so again this year. And yes, it’s an urban area.
Hoboken, which has won six state sectional titles in the past 10 years, is the top seed in North Jersey Section 1, Group II and will play host to Indian Hills this weekend.
The Section 1, Group IV bracket has three Hudson County teams, namely top-seeded Memorial, which hosts West Milford, second-seeded North Bergen, which hosts Ridgewood, and fifth-seeded Emerson, which will travel to Teaneck. North Bergen qualified for the state playoffs for the 14th straight season. Emerson qualified for the states for the second consecutive year, which is a first for the school.
Secaucus, albeit more suburban, but Hudson County all the same, will play at Cresskill in Group I.
St. Peter’s Prep, which is Parochial, but in an urban Jersey City setting nonetheless, earned the top seed in Parochial Group 4. The section is by far the most competitive bracket in New Jersey, and the Marauders received a bye this week, but will play a home game next week against the winner of Seton Hall Prep/Bergen Catholic.
That’s six teams from an urban area known as Hudson County that obviously did pretty well by the existing power point system.
Perhaps Hudson County will do even better in the weeks to come, like crowning state champions.
I don’t see any of Hudson County’s mayors filing for an injunction to stop the playoffs anytime soon.