Pre-Meeting of board

1. We have Basketball scheduling problems. We need to start the weekend before Thanksgiving, or the games will be scheduled into March, when gyms are are already blocked out for tournaments. Bob has not been able to personally speak with Scott Weyda, and Keith will speak with him on Thursday to see if we can get a waiver for both the boys and girls teams.

2. Discussion of ref fees. Will stay at $19 this year.

3. Discussion of gym fees, maximum. According to league bylaws, it was decided to keep at $1.50 for adult, $1.00 for HS and Seniors, and 50 cents for grade school. This was reviewed last year following a poll of members.

4. Basketball per team fees will go from $250 to $260 per team.

5. St. Matthew applied for admission. Will add about 7 or 8 teams. Bob had some concern because we already admitted two new schools without gyms, and we have a gym time shortage already. They have no problem with team travel. It was decided to admit them for BB

General BB meeting followed at 7pm

1. Announced new BB per team fee of $260.

2. Team commitments and checks for teams are due with Bob Roloff on September 30. He starts scheduling the next day.

3. Explained the calendar. Will not play between Christmas and New Year. Will request exemption to start week before Thanksgiving. Wants to avoid going into March. We have previously finished in Mid February.

4. Basketball rules for Parkview have not changed.

5. Team rosters are due November 16.

6. Need coach contact sheets completed, so that if games are moved or cancelled, we have a contact.

7. Any special requests, for instance, for scheduling of games to avoid something like a school play, or for a team to move up a division, should be in writing or by email to Bob Roloff on or before September 30

8. Discussion of parent/coach/player misconduct, especially with regard to getting on refs. One or two game suspensions were leveled in the past for violations. That will continue into the future.

9. Discussion and vote to change game start times to 9, 10, 11, 12:30, 1:30 and 2:30. Most games are under an hour, and this does allow some catch up time if a game runs over. Vote was almost unanimous to change.

10. Discussion of Clinics. When and where. Handouts provided.

11. Discussion of dual participation rule. In preparation for archdiocese advisory board meeting where a petition to change the rule will be considered. The large schools seemed to strongly support the current rule, while the smaller ones had some concerns with continued enforcement of this rule destroying their program.

1. Summary of argument from the larger schools: This is really about the club team players. Not the recreation league players, but the club players. And this is a small percentage of the school players. The club teams play many more games and tournaments than any archdiocesan teams, and we cannot compete with the club teams for some of these players with our 12 game schedules. Many of their tournaments take place weekends, when our games take place. There will be schedule conflicts that will inevitably result in the players selecting the club team over a school team. Parents pay a lot of money for the Club teams, and those teams generally prohibit players from missing games, or they are cut from the team. The result will be that the Parkview teams will be missing these players for some of the games, with potential forfeits, and to make matters worse, these club players may have taken an "A" team spot from some other child who shows up for every game. The schools would need to take these club team students knowing in advance that they will be missing practices and games, and create player shortages for practices and games. The larger schools seemed to strongly object to changing the rules.

2. From some of the smaller schools: These kids don't find the limited archdiocesan schedule challenging enough, and we are losing a lot of players to the club teams. This has especially hurt the soccer league, where enforcement of the dual participation rule was described as lax until last year. Now, many players have abandoned the school teams, to the point where there are not enough players to field a team. Additionally, it is a parental decision whether two teams is too much. And, there is no rule prohibiting a child from playing sports seven days a week, as long as there are different sports. If the rule was really addressing a problem of too many sports, why is this allowed?

12. On a hand vote, it was noted that the number of people wanting to keep the rule slightly outnumbered the people wanting the change, but the number was close. The split appeared, in this writer's view, to be along school size lines.