CIFC pushed Juneau out

J's World/Jeremiah Bartz

Big news from the Alaska School Activities Association meetings this week - Juneau-Douglas is leaving the Cook Inlet Football Conference in favor of the Railbelt.

Since the Crimson Bears' big move, opposing coaches in the conference have probably lost a little bit of sleep and the Railbelt has become one of the more geographically diverse conference in Alaska prep football.

Now Colony, Wasilla and Palmer - the schools in the heart of the Railbelt Conference - have region opponents as far as Fairbanks and the capitol city.

First and foremost, in an age in which money is not exactly pouring in to fund athletics, the cost of adding a remote opponent to the Railbelt scheduling is the major concern. Just last year cuts nearly forced athletes to hitchhike to their road games and the idea of purchasing 40 round trip plane tickets to Juneau every other year is mind-blowing. But in order to save their junior varsity program, and basically their prep football future, Juneau has agreed to fork over the cash and take care of virtually all the travel costs for the Railbelt foes traveling to Juneau. And that sealed the deal. Now JDHS will purchase 38 tickets for each Railbelt school sending a squad to the island.

The decision to add Juneau to the Railbelt was quick, and fairly odd. In the past, JDHS purchased 20 tickets for varsity players and 15 tickets for junior varsity players for each Anchorage foe that traveled to Juneau. In December, the CIFC schools decided to push Juneau out of their little club by mandating that JDHS purchase 30 tickets for varsity players of visiting teams. And with the new rules, the CIFC voted to stop sending junior varsity squads to Juneau.

Several of the Anchorage schools have a reputation of fielding varsity squads the size of some Army battalions, and the addition of the new bylaws were an effort to bring their astronomically large rosters on the road to Juneau. But I am sure if coaches thought about it long enough, they could scale back their travel roster enough for one road trip every two years. And if their roster boasts quantity over quality, they may have to re-think their game plan.

But more so, this is another action in the franternity-like Anchorage conference, where traveling more than 15 minutes to a game is sometimes too much of a bother. I am sure some would be satisfied if the Anchorage schools collectively moved to another level and had their own state championship. Some times big city mentality just overcomes reason.

But before I start sounding like the Unibomber, I will move on.

Once you get past the cost, the addition of Juneau brings a perennial power to a conference which epitomizes the cyclical pattern of high school athletics. Every school in the conference has had mountain-like highs and lows as deep as the bottom of a Porti-Potti. Colony has joined steady success during the Magner eras, Wasilla has had the chance to battle for the big trophy and Palmer has had a chance to dance in the streets. North Pole recently discovered how to play football and won a state title. Lathrop and West Valley are still learning. But Juneau, at least in the last five years, has always seemed to make some noise, even though they are segregated on the island along with Alaska's political movers and shakers. The Crimson Bears have won a pair of CIFC championships, advanced to the playoffs four times in five seasons and earned a spot in the 2003 state title game.

Maybe that's the real reason the CIFC booted Juneau out of the conference?

Jeremiah Bartz is the Frontiersman sports editor