California District Proposal

[jlindquist74]

Originally Posted by EricH

If I can point something out here:

The folks who prepared this document are all from NorCal.

It shows. It's not an issue of bias, but of awareness. This proposal is great work, but there's a serious problem to resolve before this can fly. Key quote from the "District 101" document:

With {...} the excess of potential venues all over the state of California

I'll come back to that later.

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

This parts isn't highlighted in the proposal, but worth mentioning:

In 2017, 4 of 8 California Regionals will be held on High School campuses.

Three of which are in NorCal. You will have problems finding SoCal venues. Look again at that wonderful by-county map. The three numbers that should jump out are 71, 19, and 37. You have to put them somewhere.

Originally Posted by jpetito

It's not the venues, it's the parking. Silly statement, but true. In the LA South Bay we've got lots of venues, good ones for forty-plus teams and pits, but they're already booked on weekends for paying 'customers' like AYSO, language schools, a hundred other events. School districts need this income and school site admin are leery of the liability incurred with what look to them like piles of rolling junk.

I don't think the schools will worry about liability. They're familiar with their own teams.

Parking *is* part of venues. We'll be competing with those other events to line up venues. Many schools may let go of higher revenue in favor of supporting their own academic programs (that's us,) but many are under too much financial pressure to let that kind of money walk. This is not a trivial issue.

Remember that bit about an "excess of venues"? It isn't valid in San Diego. Call it a consequence of us having better weather than the rest of you, but we have little history of building large or multiple gyms. We really don't have venues to offer.

Of 116 schools in San Diego and Imperial Counties, only 7 have two gyms. Three (Carlsbad, Fallbrook, Escondido) are at schools with no team. Grossmont (4919) and Mar Vista (no team, but same district as 2543, 3704, 4616, 5627) have a long distance between them. That leaves Ramona (2029) and Sweetwater (3704). (And Ramona's a bit off the beaten path.)

Can we fit pits into Mission Hills' (5137) or Canyon Crest's (3128) gyms? (Same design, a large spectator gym with an 84'x50' practice court stubbed off to the side.) Can 5137 get us the huge gym at San Marcos HS? (Large enough for three side-by-side courts, large-capacity bleachers cover one, bleachers closed on the third for pit space. Is that even large enough?) Can 1972 get neighboring Southwest HS in El Centro? (Similar config to San Marcos. And of course, that means driving two hours to El Centro.)

The junior colleges and private 4-year schools lack facilities, and the ongoing budget crisis has forced the state universities to treat outside rentals as revenue sources. (SDSU and UCSD won't give us any breaks.) If we can't be assured of three (maybe two) district events close enough to drive/bus to daily, I don't expect much support for a proposal which would eliminate our present home event.