Last year in California, Narbonne won the Open Division Championship... but they did it with four forfeit victories on their schedule.
From
FootballScoop:
"Among those concerns were 20 new transfers that arrived at Narbonne following a 4-6 season two years ago, along with financial incentives in the "tens of thousands of dollars" and various housing arrangements that were being provided by the school or football program for those transfers as well as others on the roster.
Refusing to play a fellow school not abiding by the rules, the coaches at Banning HS (Raymond Grajeda), Carson HS (Michael Christensen), Monty Gilbreath (Gardena) and Corey Walsh (San Pedro) encouraged decisive action to be taken, providing three examples; 1) Narbonne be suspended from the league, 2) the conference allow the four schools to break off and form a new league or 3) the four schools join a different league altogether where fairness and integrity are an actual priority and not just lip service."
The boycott didn't work right away, but in a subsequent investigation after Narbonne won the 2024 title, the CIF found that Narbonne
"did not provide accurate information during the investigation and broke undue influence and pre-enrollment contact bylaws leading up to the 2024 football season."
The penalties?
1) vacating wins
2) banned from the 2025, 2026 and 2027 CIF LA City Section football playoffs, with the ability to appeal after the 2025-26 school year.
3) Four Years Probation
It's good to see that the CIF has teeth, but how could this affect Arizona High School football?
Despite what people think, recruiting is nowhere near as rampant in Arizona as it is in California, where the private schools regularly hand parents a list of players to go out and try to recruit on the coaching staff's behalf so they have a degree of separation. It's not uncommon for rent for a year, relocation costs, and grocery money to change hands as an enticement to get kids to the best schools.
In Arizona, recruiting is a lot less sexy- it usually encompasses hunting for a QB at the middle school level and using the promise of attendance to build a roster, or developing/co=opting feeder programs and hiring the youth coaches to be on the freshman staff- but recently I've been getting some calls about some direct recruiting... reaching out to players via their DMs and letting them know that they might have a home/better fit elsewhere. Definitely very risky to leave a trail.
You do have to wonder if the CIF flexing its muscles in this way will make any coaches in AZ that are skirting the rules think twice.
Thoughts?
