Hash it out.
That was the phrase that was used often on Wednesday during a teleconference to announce that the Lehigh Valley Conference has approved expansion and the admission of six Mountain Valley Conference schools to the area's big-school league.
Beginning in 2014-15, the LVC will be an 18-school league.
That's what we know. And we know who those 18 schools are.
What we don't know is how those schools will be aligned in any sport or who will play who and how often.
LVC president Chris Schiffert, the Whitehall principal, and the MVC president Jeff Sodl, the Stroudsburg principal, said -- repeatedly -- that everyone will get together, discuss the schedules and the divisions and "hash it out."
Well, good luck with that because -- guaranteed -- not everybody is going be happy.
We're already hearing there's disagreement and dissatisfaction and nothing has even been finalized.
No wonder that no individual school was allowed to speak on Wednesday and everything had to come from the two league presidents.
Can't blame them for putting the muzzle on because if they were allowed to speak, and spoke honestly, you would have heard some groaning and moaning.
And that's no one way to begin a new league that already has certain members not trusting other members.
Some people are still scratching their heads and wondering why we have this new league.
Look, the Mountain Valley Conference -- down to six teams after the impending departure of Lehighton -- needed to latch on somewhere, and why not with the Lehigh Valley Conference and with teams that they already play in nonleague games?
The thought of going north into the Scranton area was not very enticing to the MVC. And really, if there's one thing that's overblown it's the travel time from Monroe to Lehigh County. I live in Emmaus, the most southwestern portion of the Lehigh Valley Conference and I can get to anywhere in the MVC -- except East Stroudsburg North -- in an hour or less.
Ok, I realize that it's not the 10 minutes it takes me to get to Allen, or the 15 it takes me to get to Parkland, or the 20 it takes me to get to Whitehall or Dieruff, or even the half-hour to Easton and Nazareth.
But an hour -- and schools like Stroudsburg and Pleasant Valley are more like 45 minutes for me -- really isn't that bad. The LVC schools are really spoiled when it comes to travel. Few leagues in the state have so many schools so close together. Just ask the Colonial League which has those Palmerton to Palisades and Northern Lehigh to Bangor hikes to take.
What the old guard of the LVC gains from this is better seeding in the District 11 tournaments. The district gives top seeds to league champs and beginning in 2014-15, the current LVC members won't be losing seeds to champs from the MVC, who they felt, in many cases, were inferior and still took quality seeds away from them.
Also, by getting them in the same league and having more opportunities to compete against the Monroe County teams, the LVC feels it will win a lot of those matchups and gain more in the district seedings.
So, those are basically the biggest positives for why the LVC is doing this.
Everybody is also talking about all the flexibility the bigger league offers. But that remains to be seen.
Having a larger league means, generally, more league games -- not less.
You would think that in most sports attempts would be made to have league members play most of the other league members. If not, then what's the sense of being in the same league?
It can't happen in football The idyllic situation that has existed for the last two years in the LVC will be gone. With a 10-team league, you got to play everyone else and crown a true champion, and you still fit in a nonleague game.
With an 18-team league, you have to go to two 9-team divisions. Play everyone in your own division and then maybe play two crossover games against teams from the other division.
But you won't get a true league champ. Divisional champs, yes, but not a true league champ.
In other sports such as girls and boys basketball, baseball and softball, you'd think they'd go with three divisions of six and decide champions with a four-team tournament. Take the three division winners and and a wild-card. That's all good. Everybody likes the final four concept.
But how many league games are you going to play? Remember, in basketball there's a 22-game limit and in sports like baseball and softball, you can only play 20 total games.
Play everyone in your league just once and you're already up to 17 games and have minimal opportunity to play nonleague games. Play the teams in your own division twice -- which is the current setup -- and everybody else once and you'll be at the 22-game limit in basketball and over the limit in baseball and softball.
It's going to be interesting to see what is "hashed out" here, but again, the one thing I predict is that not everybody will be happy.
Even Sodl acknowledged as much on Wednesday when he said "Everybody is going to have to give a little."
Of course, the most interesting aspect of what is to be "hashed out" is what they do with Bethlehem Catholic, the school that always draws a wary eye because of the alleged ways of how it attracts some of its athletes.
No one will ever go on the record saying this, at least not while they're still involved, but the desire to leave Becahi behind was the original impetus for this whole expansion.
And if you thought the MVC acted alone in deciding to invite everybody from the LVC except CCHS and Becahi, I've got a few used cars in my garage I'd like to unload on you.
It's hard to find anyone, even people from Central Catholic, who speak kindly about the Golden Hawks in terms of how they go about building their rosters. We do know that Becahi has had meetings imploring its coaches to abide by the rules, but some are saying those coaches are still not listening, at least at the lower levels.
In this "It's all about me" era, kids and their families are going to go where they want to go. You can't stop the movement. Yet, the allegations about this guy doing this and that guy doing that continue.
As bad as it was when the East Penn Conference broke up in the late 1990s, and back then CCHS got its share of loathing as well, the rancor as it relates to Becahi is much worse now. This time, no one can make Bob Stem the fall guy.
That's why it shocked me to learn that Becahi was heard voicing displeasure about being sent to the "Mountain Valley" division of football. Back in April for a few days, it looked as though the Golden Hawks might be a team without a league, period.
And if several ADs had their way, they would not be included in the new league.
So, if I am Becahi and I don't want to be stuck playing an independent schedule against teams across the state like Pius X, I gladly accept wherever the new-look LVC wants to send me and try to improve my image and build trust with the rest of the league. The Golden Hawks may not like having to play Stroudsburg and Pleasant Valley in football rather than playing Easton and Parkland, but would they rather be playing teams in Harrisburg and Pittsburgh instead? I don't think so.
The meetings that are going to take place in the next few weeks will be as fascinating as the last six months have been in getting to this point.
Hash it out, indeed.
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