By Dan Cleary

   Mike Van Zile must be feeling a case of déjà vu these days.

   The former outstanding AD and football coach at Wallkill Valley spearheaded the charge for football realignment over a decade ago and watched his proposal fail in its first try in front of the membership of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association.

    Part of Van Zile’s plan allowed for group champions in football, and a complete revamping of how football-playing schools would be grouped together by size and locations.

   Well, as everyone knows by now, the members of the NJSIAA decided to realign all of the conferences in North Jersey for all sports four years ago and the drumbeat for group champions in football started gaining steam again and it looked like it would become a reality.

    To quote Lee Corso of ESPN: Not so fast, NJSIAA.

   At its annual membership meeting at the Pines Manor in Edison a proposal to change the state constitution to allow for group champions was shot down as it did not receive the two-thirds majority vote needed for passage.

   Only 167 schools supported the idea, 23 votes shy of 190 votes needed for it to pass. There were 102 schools which voted against the idea and three abstentions. 

    What troubles me is that only 272 out of the 433 members schools decided to attend the meeting, but I will get to that later.

   So what does this mean? It means that any sort of proposal involving group champions cannot be brought to a vote for two years. And in my opinion, it spells the end of group champs for at least another 10 years unless someone can come up with a plan that satisfies the Thanksgiving game crew.

   What a shame.

   The idea for group champions is a good one and the plans devised by Marcus Borden of East Brunswick and Bill Bruno of Brick were great jumping off points with plenty of room for tweaking and discussion.

   But after a major realignment four years ago, I think some of the schools didn’t have the stomach to take on another change and took the easy way out and just voted no.

   And by voting no, these schools didn’t even allow the member schools an opportunity to come up with a definitive plan because Tuesday’s vote was based on changing the state bylaws, which is very bizarre in itself.

   First off, why is football singled out as the only sport not to have group champs? That makes no sense to me. To have it written into its charter that football will only have sectional champs seems very odd considering that the state decided to let the Non-Publics go to a group champ over a decade ago.

    No one has been able to explain that to me. My guess is that, as we all know, football drives the bus in this state, and having 20 sectional champs gives more football coaches a chance to call themselves champs.

   What makes it even more ridiculous is that all other sports go to group champs with several of them having a Tournament of Champions. Why not football?

   It would bring in more revenue to an association fighting for its economic life, so it would be a no-brainer, right?

   I guess not.

   But it is not a dead issue as Van Zile found out. A year after he retired realignment became a reality and what some folks don’t remember is that Van Zile’s plan was for football only. Sometimes the guys at Wallkill take the heat from realignment critics, but they just wanted to change football not the whole landscape of high school sports.

   So it is back to the drawing board for proponents of group champs. Hopefully guys like Borden and Bruno keep fighting for it like Van Zile did. But reading their comments in The Ledger doesn’t give me much hope.

   In fact, Bruno blamed the media in part for the vote accusing some outlets of “spewing what they thought would be a good playoff system that got ahead of the program. I think they didn’t let the process play itself out.”

    Spewing is an interesting choice of words. But I bet Van Zile would have loved all the “spewing” he could have gotten back in the day when he was a lone voice in the desert.

   So we will see if the movement for group champs stays alive or falls to the wayside. The ball is back in hands of the plan’s proponents and I hope they don’t punt.

    Now back to the fact that only 272 schools attended the annual meeting. How can that be? The NJSIAA is in its most trying times since its inception almost 100 years ago and just over half of the member schools attended?

   The meeting was described to me as a “ghost town.” How can this be?

   I know the state maybe on its last legs as we know it, but that does not excuse that many member schools from not attending the biggest meeting of the year. 

   Shameful.

   UPDATE---A couple of blogs ago I released the new Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference classifications for all sports. Since then I have received an update for football and the following is the new breakdown. 

     The biggest change is that Wallkill Valley is leaving the Freedom for football and will play other Group 1 football schools in the Independence Division.

AMERICAN DIVISION—High point, Pope John, Sparta, Vernon, Morris Hills, Montville, Morris Knolls and Mount Olive.

NATIONAL---West Morris, Randolph, Chatham, Morristown, Delbarton, Mendham, Roxbury, Parsippany Hills.

 FREEDOM----Lenape Valley, Newton, Parisppany, Dover, Madison, Hanover Park, Jefferson, Hackettstown and Kittatinny.

INDEPENDENCE---Mountain Lakes, Hopatcong, Pequannock, North Warren, Boonton, Whippany Park, Kinnelon, Morris Catholic, Butler and Wallkill Valley.

   That is it for now see you on the sidelines.