Tucson Weekly: Fools With Rules (May 21

Could The Arizona Interscholastic Association Mess Up Prep Sports Any Worse?
By Tom Danehy
I LOVE ARIZONA. I love high-school sports. I love Arizona high-school sports. Alas, I'm not so sure the same can be said for those who actually run Arizona high-school sports.
The Arizona Interscholastic Association, legendary for its stupidity and wrong-headedness, continues to roll along, blazing new trails of meanness, ineptitude, and blind allegiance to all that is Phoenix.
Danehy This organization could fill an entire season of TV bloopers without even trying (which, apparently, is their course of action, anyway). Most every sports fan in the state is familiar with their recent lowlights.
Back when Arizona had only two congressmen in the House of Representatives, the gerrymandering was pretty simple, even for our doltish pols. The Phoenix metropolitan area was one district, the rest of the state was the other one. Morris Udall basically represented a district which looked like a huge donut, from Douglas to Kingman, Yuma to Chinle.
If things keep going like they have been in Arizona prep sports, don't be surprised if the same thing happens to the AIA.
The bad thing here is that I have no doubt that most of the people in the AIA are hard-working, decent people who try to do the right thing by all of the athletes in the state. Unfortunately, there are enough of them in important positions who allow themselves to be bullied, cajoled or lulled into laziness, and the results are bizarre.
Take the recent Class 4A state basketball championships. Teams begin official practice around Halloween, play two or three games a week through the middle of February, and then have to play the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and championship games on three consecutive nights.
Why not let the advancing teams have a little time off to bask in the glory, to build up some excitement at their schools and in their communities, and to get some life back in the legs which are just about dead by that time of the year? What would it hurt?
Oh, I know. Jerry Colangelo has locked you into some Gordian deal with America West Arena where you have to run teams through there with military-like precision or risk...what? Being labeled human?
This past season, an AIA official got into it with a player from a state championship team whose grievous sin was staying on the court after the game to soak up the atmosphere and revel in the feeling he'd been working much of his young life to achieve.
Apparently, the exchange went something like this:
AIA Guy: "Hey, what are you still doing on the court?"
Kid: "The TV guy was interviewing me, and now that he's done, I just wanted to soak up the atmosphere and revel in the feeling."
AIA Guy: "You can't. According to our guidelines, the winners have four minutes, 37 seconds to exult, after which they must return to a calm demeanor with which they will conduct the rest of their natural lives."
Or something like that.
In all seriousness, eyewitnesses report the member of the AIA Happiness Police just about went ballistic with the kid. It was real ugly.
Having learned nothing, the AIA plunged ahead with the spring sports championships. Many of them came off quite well despite the AIA's involvement. Among the highlights:
• Tiny Green Fields Country Day School won the Class 1A state baseball championship. Two years ago, Green Fields went 1-20. Perhaps even more amazing is that the Griffins won the title by beating St. David High, a school of around 140 kids which had a stellar core of athletes who'd already won the state football, basketball and track championships.
I was once loosely affiliated with Green Fields, a northwest-side college prep academy. One time I was on the radio and the host asked, "So what is a Griffin, anyway?"
I answered, "It's a short, slow white dude with a high SAT score."
Now it's also a baseball champion.
• Mesa Mountain View completed a rare triple by winning the state Class 5A (big schools) championships in football, basketball, and baseball. The football team scored a touchdown in the last couple minutes to edge Tucson Amphi in football; the basketball team rolled over everyone; and the baseball team completed a last-inning rally when the opposing pitcher hit two batters in a row to walk in the winning run.
Mountain View, which claims its athletic excellence is strictly due to hard work and has nothing to do with its enrollment, decided to give all 72,483 of its students Monday off to celebrate the feat. They were going to hold a year-ending pep rally, but they couldn't all fit in Sun Devil Stadium.
• Getting back to Green Fields, the Griffins won their semi-final game on May 8 and had a week to prepare for St. David. The AIA also had a week to find a different venue (Hi Corbett? Tucson Electric Park?) for the game which pitted two Southern Arizona teams. Instead, the AIA insisted the game be played in Phoenix.
• Meanwhile the Class 4A softball championships were at Tucson Sportspark. But the AIA made it clear that if two Phoenix teams were in the finals, the game would be switched to Phoenix. Tucson Sahuaro ruined their plans by making it to the title game.
Oh yeah, by the way, the idiots who planned the tournament made teams play on Wednesday, take Thursday off, then play quarter-final and semi-final double-headers on Friday! It's so unfair.
They also held the 4A and 5A state track championships at the UA track and it was a spectacular success. Overflow crowds, great facilities, great performances.
Immediately afterwards, the AIA went into special session to find out where they messed up.

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