Of the 12 teams covered by JSN, only Montville stands to see a huge shift. The Mustangs were placed in a division with seven other Morris County schools of similar size. The proposed grouping includes nearby Parsippany and Parsippany Hills, but also more distant schools like Mount Olive and West Morris. Currently, Montville competes in the Northern Hills Conference (NHC) with teams from Passaic, Morris and Essex Counties.
Some other large NHC schools will find themselves grouped together under the plan. West Milford, Lakeland and Passaic Valley were placed in a six-team division with three schools from Wayne: Wayne Hills, Wayne Valley and DePaul. Of that sextet, only Wayne Hills comes from outside the NHC.
Many of our region's smaller schools will also land in a group together. Kinnelon, Boonton and Mountain Lakes from the Colonial Hills Conference will join Pequannock and Butler from the NHC in a new 10-team division. This new league includes two other public schools (Whippany Park and Madison) and three small private institutions.
The last team in our area will hardly see a change at all. Pompton Lakes is a member of the Bergen-Passaic Scholastic League, which was barely touched by the NJSIAA realignment committee. The BPSL will effectively become a division in a larger sports super-conference, losing only two of its 13 members and adding one outside school.
The decision involving Pompton Lakes demonstrates one of the shortcomings of the plan. It would make more sense geographically to include it with nearby schools such as Butler, Kinnelon and Pequannock. But the committee used the Passaic/Morris county line as a strict border between leagues. A similar rationale apparently kept West Milford from being in a league with Sussex County schools.
Of course, the primary issue that prompted the realignment effort in the first place was the growing discontent between public and private schools. JSN area schools didn't have to deal with the most powerful private school sports programs in the past, and the realignment won't change that. In fact, several local schools will actually drop a strong Delbarton program from their schedules.
But the realignment is coming under criticism for how it deals with the private super-powers of Bergen County. Instead of placing all the top private schools in one division, the plan separates them into multiple leagues, in an apparent effort to "spread the pain" among more public schools. Many coaches and observers are calling this a cop-out.
If enough people raise objections prior to the NJSIAA's vote on the plan in September, it's possible the proposal could be altered, or even tabled. But most in the athletic community expect the plan to pass, meaning the new sports leagues would go into effect in the fall of 2009. |
