A blog by Richard Smith

Centennial’s Randy Lavender and Liberty’s Mark Wood are basketball coaches first, but they’re not locked in the gym all year. Wood is a constant supporter of Lions football, leading the chain gang at home games.

Lavender is a newcomer at Centennial and does not teach on campus, but was at many Coyotes football home games this fall.

So both men surely were rooting on their schools when Centennial and Liberty played in the 5A semifinal Nov. 17 at Peoria High School. Yet, both had to a know that a win for the football team would deal a blow to their basketball hopes.

A combination of odd factors — three straight Cardinals home games in late November-early December, continuing renovations of Sun Devil Stadium and the unavailability of Arizona Stadium in Tucson on Thanksgiving weekend — pushed the big school state title games back to Dec. 2 in Tucson.

So the six schools in those title games — Centennial or Liberty among them — would play a week of basketball preseason tournaments, as well as two or three regular season games, without the football players that also play hoops.

This probably was a once-in-a-blue-moon situation, but the overlap of football in the basketball, soccer and wrestling programs has been an issue for years.

Fixes are not easy, but some tweaks in the sports schedule could make life easier for all involved

Transition takes time

Lavender said senior forward Trent Washington had his first basketball practice Dec. 5. Washington started several games at defensive end for the Coyotes, and is the second leading returning scorer and rebounder behind senior Koby Jones.

Washington ended up missing four tournament games, which do not count in the rankings, and two regular season games, which do. The Coyotes lost both, but  to be fair, Chaparral is a likely top 10 team in 5A and Deer Valley is a bona fide state title contender, so Centennial was going to be the underdog in any circumstance.

“It kind of hurt because it put him behind with everything we learn. He would have helped because he’s a big body and athletic,” Lavender said. “When I came here I knew there were some kids that played football. I didn’t know they were pushing the title games back until a little before the season started. But you just have to take the mentality of going with the players you’ve got. Like I told the AD, ‘I’m not here to compete with the football program, I’m here to make the basketball program better.’ I want football to stay good, it’s good for the school.”

He said Washington would play in two-minute spurts during his first week, which featured games against Kellis, Ironwood and Apollo on three straight nights since he needs to build up his endurance.

Centennial beat Kellis and Ironwood, then lost to Apollo. Last week, the Coyotes followed up by beating Verrado and upsetting Gilbert Mesquite — moving the team up to No. 20 in the 5A rankings.

Sophomore Jojo Rincon injured his hip playing football, and was likely to see minutes off the bench as a guard.

Wood faces a similar scenario with Kade Heddings, who injured his knee during football and was expected to be a reserve guard for the Lions. Sophomore Jace Accurso played about half the snaps for Liberty also should see time for a basketball program that loves to play up tempo and uses most of its roster. Junior Braxten Croteau probably will start in the post, after his star turn as a defensive end that led to a couple of Division I football offers.

While Wood may have lucked out in getting these kids back two weeks early, a closer look at what that means illuminates how difficult it is to integrate players from a football semifinalist into a winter sports schedule.

Liberty’s football season ended Nov. 17 and its basketball season started at the Sunnyslope tournament Nov. 20, with games every day that week except for Thanksgiving. Then the Lions played three games the opening week of the regular season.

So by the time Washington returned to Centennial basketball, Accurso and Croteau had only about four or five practices with their Liberty teammates.

“We’re already (starting) significantly later,” Wood said. “Winter sports coaches have been battling this for years.”

Wood speaks from experience, having coached for more than 20 years, first at football powerhouse Cactus, then starting Liberty’s program. The AZPreps365 page shows football brackets going as far back as 2001.

In the early 2000s, football title games were played as late as Dec. 14 and usually took place during the first Saturday of December. Then the AIA went to that bizarre 5AI/5AII, 4AI/4AII setup in the mid-2000s and started the season and the playoffs a bit earlier.

But 5A basketball coaches got the short end of the stick, as the conference’s two divisions took a week off for Thanksgiving in between the quarterfinals and semifinals.

The basketball season did start later and often ended in the first week of March, but the early weeks were uneven as football players were missing or starting to work their way back into basketball condition.

And by now Arizona had adapted power point rankings for playoff qualification, instead of taking the top three teams from each region.

Suddenly those haphazard early December games counted as much as the showdown with your neighborhood rival. That’s been a problem for about 10 years, even with the football season moving up to the middle of scorching August and less overlap with basketball.

Liberty junior linebacker Ryan Pitts (#22) and junior defensive end Braxton Croteau (#5) team up to tackle Campo Verde senior quarterback E.J. Galvez in Friday's 5A first round playoff game. [Donna Mundy/For West Valley Preps][/caption]

Changing the sports schedule

I’ve focused on basketball, but the other boys sports are equally at risk. Players on top football teams miss the start of soccer season.

And while there is no weight attached to wrestling dual meets, more football players are likely to transition to wrestling than any other sport. Less of them may go through with it if their football season ends later, after four months of trying to keep weight on for football, it’s very difficult to reverse course, drop that weight and wrestle.

Having said all that, the first week of December seems like a natural time to have the football title games. There is one more round of renovations at Sun Devil Stadium after the 2018 season, so hopefully University of Phoenix Stadium is available next year — it’s particularly silly to have the 6A title game ending around 10 p.m. in Tucson and hurt the gate this year.

Most importantly, an end date in early December would be the result of a start in early September. Everyone involved is very fortunate that no kids have dropped from heat exhaustion — or worse — at an Aug. 17 football game in the desert.

Zero week would be the last week in August under this plan but would only be used for specialty games out of state or in Northern Arizona, like the Sollenberger Classic.

The bulk of the teams would play 10 straight games starting the first week of September. Playoffs would start the second week of November and run four straight weeks.

Even though Centennial Coach Richard Taylor admitted benefitting from two weeks to prepare for the 5A title game, he said he and his players would prefer the consistency of playing every week.

What about winter sports? Well, move their start dates — and end dates — back one week too. This is easier said than done.

The other seasons don’t have to contend with a two week holiday break. So, to an extent, basketball, soccer and wrestling will always be truncated.

“The winter sports get sandwiched,” Wood said. “You don’t have a lot of winter-spring overlap.”

And that’s the point, most winter sports seasons end artificially early to solve a “problem” that doesn’t really exist. Basketball wraps at the tail end of February. Soccer and wrestling by the second week of February.

Surely, finishing soccer and wrestling one week later would not harm baseball or track.

“(I’d like the season to start) a week later for hoops, but it really doesn’t bother me. Regardless of how they do it we will conform and be fine,” Deer Valley basketball coach Jed Dunn said.

For the most part, baseball would be fine if basketball ended a week later, or even two. There simply are not many players who compete in both at a high level.

Lavender said one freshman he coached at Agua Fria in the last two seasons also played baseball.

Wood probably coached the most prominent example locally in Nathan Bannister, a basketball starter for the Lions who was good enough as a pitcher to be the ace of the 2016 Arizona Wildcats NCAA runner-up team.

Other examples crop up — another former ace pitcher, Steven Kane of Sunrise Mountain comes to mind. But in those cases, Wood said, a basketball coach will approach the player a bit differently and make sure he is available for everything needed in baseball, his clear #1 sport.

It’s not a perfect solution. I’m sure a small school in rural Arizona has a girl that is the leading basketball scorer and top slugger for softball.

But this sports schedule seems like a more sensible way forward. And who doesn’t want a little March Madness?

“I’ve got a couple friends that coach in California and while we’re done in mid-February, they’re still playing until the middle of March, like March Madness. That’s something I would like to see,” Lavender said.

Editor’s note: Richard Smith is the Sports Editor for the Daily News-Sun, Glendale Today, Peoria Today and Surprise Today. Follow his work and myriad local high school game recaps for West Valley Preps on YourValley.net.