The Home Team Takes Another Hit

This has been a tough year for our home town Mission Viejo Diablos football team. After a season that saw them lose the league championship for the first time this century, they got another blow from the CIF:

Mission Viejo, which is experiencing its least successful season this decade, was thrown for another loss Wednesday when it was announced by the Southern Section office that the Diablos would forfeit their first two football games of the season for using an ineligible player.

Mission Viejo will forfeit its 26-22 victory over host Cincinnati (Ohio) Moeller on Sept. 1 and a 34-14 victory over Redondo the next weekend.

The player was not a starter.

This reminds me of my sophomore year at La Quinta High School. We had a terrific team that year, partly due to an outstanding running back who was new to our school that year. The team was 8-0 with only one game to go before the playoffs when the CIF announced that our star back was ineligible and we had to forfeit all 8 games. I can still remember seeing cheerleaders sobbing at the news.

The team was so upset and discombobulated by the news that they lost the 9th game against a team they should have easily beaten. The district principals voted us into the playoffs despite our official 0-9 record and we eventually lost in the 2nd round.

One interesting side note was that a columnist at the Orange County Register wrote a column very supportive of my school and highly critical of the CIF. The school held a pep rally and invited the columnist to speak. He was treated like a hero. It was something to see.

Mission meets Orange Lutheran tonight in the first round of the playoffs. I don't think we'll see the second round.