Officials from the NJSIAA faced some tough questioning Friday from North Jersey athletic directors as the third attempt in recent years to allow public schools to play to a state champion in football winds its way toward a date with the associatioin’s full membership in December.
In a regularly scheduled meeting. athletic directors from five different counties grilled NJSIAA assistant director Jack DuBois and River Dell athletic director Denis Nelson, who proposed the constitutional change as the executive director of the Big North Conference, on a possible plan that would start the season one week early while extending it an extra week for the 10 teams playing for the title. That plan would have teams opening their 2015 season on Labor Day weekend.
One athletic director from Sussex County questioned why all schools would be forced to incur the added cost of bringing out security, ambulance and other support staff on a holiday weekend in 2015, when Labor Day doesn’t come until Sept. 7, in order to allow 10 teams to play for a state championship in December.
“This was not unexpected,†Nelson said about the questions Friday. “When you talk about a sport that is as visible as football, you’re going to have a lot of people who want to be heard on the issue.â€
The first voice, however, will be heard December 2nd when two-thirds of the association’s full membership must vote to eliminate one line in the association constitution that reads “State championships will not be contested in football.â€
An identical request put forth in 2011 by Athletic Director Bill Bruno of Brick Memorial and football coach Marcus Borden of East Brunswick did not receive the necessary two-thirds vote for passage. Neither did an earlier proposal by former Wallkill Valley athletic director Mike Van Zile.
“I think the biggest hurdle is that people don’t like change,†Nelson said. “I always thought football could be improved, and I think this is an improvement. Having to get two-thirds makes it difficult, but I think it’s good that everybody in the state gets a chance to weight in on it.â€
The current proposal includes a possible plan for a full nine-game football schedule that starts the season a week earlier, Â maintains Thanksgiving Day games, which have always been a deal breaker for the 100 teams in South and Central Jersey that still play the holiday game, calls for public state sectional finals and non-public state finals the week before Thanksgiving and public state semifinals and finals the two weeks following Thanksgiving.
That plan, which is different from the Big North plan that included an eight-game regular season instead of nine, came out of a meeting of representatives from all 15 conferences in the state. If the proposal to change the constitution is approved in December, the  task of creating the official format of the playoffs and schedule falls to the association’s football committee. It would ultimately have to be approved by the association’s executive committee before going into effect in September 2014.
That shift of power from to control the format of the playoffs from the schools throughout the state to the association’s football committee, which is made up of about 10 people, concerned some athletic directors like Tom Kaechele of Old Tappan.
But Steve Timko, the executive director of the NJSIAA, doesn’t expect any surprises if the full membership votes in December to chance the constitution.
“I wouldn’t be too concerned about that because the model that has been developed was developed by representatives of every conference in the state,†he said.
And it still comes do to a single question, should public schools be permitted to play to a state champion.
“We still have to vote whether or not to allow these kids to play to a championship,†said Nutley athletic director Joe Piro. “That has to happen before we can discuss and tweak any plan to do it.â€