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8/26/2008-Football
Silliness in the Catholic League
By MICK MCCABE of The Detroit Free-Press
It began in January with a report that U-D Jesuit was attempting to leave the Catholic League's Central Division for football.
That prompted a letter from Catholic League director Vic Michaels insisting that U-D had never requested a move. But too many people connected with the school had told me that U-D athletic director R.J. Lomas -- now the former AD -- repeatedly said U-D was leaving the Central for the report not to be true.
Well, here in the first week of the season, it is difficult to tell who is in the Central Division and who isn't.
Novi Detroit Catholic Central, Birmingham Brother Rice, Orchard Lake St. Mary's, Warren De La Salle, U-D Jesuit and Dearborn Divine Child are listed in the Central. However, only St. Mary's plays five league games; Rice, CC, De La Salle and U-D play four. Divine Child plays only three league games.
How can everyone in a six-team league not play five league games? Who's eligible to play in the Prep Bowl?
"They're all eligible," said Michaels. Winning percentages will determine the Prep Bowl participants.
This makes no sense. Divine Child will not play Brother Rice or De La Salle, and U-D will not play CC.
"When we initially set that up, U-D was not going to play St. Mary," Michaels said. "And then they agreed to play Week 2 out of our season to allow for an imbalanced schedule but still the opportunity to make the Prep Bowl."
If you're in a division, you should play all teams in your division, right?
"No," said Michaels. "The board felt, and the athletic directors felt, we could have a league where everybody doesn't play everyone and still allow them to remain in that division. It's not uncommon in the Big Ten, for example. There are schools that don't play each other in the Big Ten and they still have a Big Ten champion. We just kind of followed a guideline similar to that."
Comparing the six-team Central to the 11-team Big Ten is like comparing apples to automobiles. And the Big Ten teams play the same number of games.
"This isn't the first time we've done this," Michael said. "We've been doing it for two or three years in the Intersectional leagues. When Notre Dame Prep moved into the Intersectional, they didn't play Light & Life and Urban Lutheran."
Notre Dame Prep didn't play some teams because it was ridiculously larger than those teams. U-D is not the smallest school in the Central.
"They asked for relief," Michaels said of U-D. "Realistically, there isn't a whole lot of relief. We don't have a number of schools at that level to put them in."
But U-D's enrollment is just under Rice's and significantly above St. Mary's, which is why it was ludicrous for Lomas to want out of the Central. And he did want out.
"R.J. Lomas was the athletic director, and I'm sure he felt he was speaking for U-D," Michaels said. "Their alumni, their president, they didn't want out. You know what, maybe he was talking about himself, because he's out of the Central Division."
Yes he is, but it is still difficult to tell who is in and who isn't.
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