High school athletics in Southern California are governed by the book.
As in the Blue Book, the CIF Southern Section’s 260-page handbook that details the region’s high school sports’ governing body’s constitution and by-laws.
Under “Code of Ethics,” the Blue Book states “IT IS THE DUTY OF ALL CONCERNED WITH HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS” “to emphasize the proper ideals of sportsmanship, ethical conduct, and fair play.”
The code also states that those involved in high school sports have to “recognize that the purpose of athletics is to promote the physical, mental, moral, social and emotional well-being of individual players.”
The Blue Book and CIF Southern Section rules, however, do not cover hazing, a CIF official said Monday.
The CIF Southern Section, citing a lack of jurisdiction, will not conduct an investigation of Mater Dei High School head football coach Bruce Rollinson and the school’s handling of an alleged hazing incident between two players last February that left one of the players with a traumatic brain injury, a broken nose and other head injuries, CIF assistant commissioner Thom Simmons said.
“The CIF is really not involved in any shape or form,” Simmons said when asked if the CIF Southern Section intended to investigate Rollinson and Mater Dei’s handling of the altercation.
Simmons said that even if a player committed a crime with the approval of a coach, “there’s nothing the CIF Southern Section can do about it. This is a criminal matter, this is a civil matter. Stated simply this is an all Mater Dei issue.”
Longtime athlete safety advocates maintain that the Mater Dei case is the latest example of the CIF Southern Section failing to protect the young athletes it governs.
“It’s the responsibility of every institution that oversees athletics,” said Katherine Starr, founder of Safe4Athletes, a national advocacy organization dedicated to child athlete welfare. “If you’re going to govern sports, if you’re going to make money off athletes then you need to be willing to protect them as well.
“The CIF has failed to establish clear boundaries of what is acceptable behavior. Without that, there is no ability to create accountability and integrity within the system and protect athletes.”
Simmons said expanding CIF by-laws to cover issues like hazing or sexual abuse would require the support of the Southern Section’s member schools.
“We don’t have any power to create a situation where we penalize a school (for hazing),” Simmons said.
But John Manly, a Mater Dei graduate and Orange County attorney who has represented hundreds of USA Gymnastics and Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse survivors, said the CIF’s stance is disingenuous and called for legislative oversight of high school sports in California.
“What the CIF is really saying is it’s not that we don’t have to power to do something, it’s that it’s going to cost us money and we’re going to get push-back from our members,” said Manly, who has handled dozens of sexual abuse lawsuits against Mater Dei and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. “If this is truly the CIF’s position then the legislature ought to take a strong stand at regulating high school sports in this state. Because the CIF is not protecting athletes, they’re not ensuring fair play and athlete safety.
“If it’s not your problem, then whose problem is it?”
The CIF Southern Section is a tax exempt, non-profit organization. It reported $4.47 million in revenue, $4.42 million in expenses, according to a filing with the Internal Revenue Service in 2019, the most recent year financial records are available. The organization spent $1.81 million on salaries and another $687,764 on other employee benefits and pension contributions in 2019. The Southern Section received $491, 600 in member fees in 2019. Sporting events brought in $2.01 million in revenue.
A current Mater Dei player punched a teammate, 50 pounds lighter than him, three times in the face during a hazing ritual called “Bodies” on Feb. 4 while other Monarchs players shouted racial epithets at the smaller player, according to two videos of the altercation obtained by the Orange County Register.
The Register is not identifying the players because of their ages.
The Santa Ana Police Department recommended the larger player be prosecuted for felony battery, according to a police report. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office does not intend to file charges in the case.
The smaller player’s family filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei High School and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange in Orange County Superior Court on Tuesday, Nov. 23.
“If I had a hundred dollars for every time these kids played Bodies or Slappies, I’d be a millionaire,” Rollinson told the injured player’s father the day after the altercation, according to a court filing.
But Rollinson said during an April interview with a Santa Ana Police Department investigator that the interview was “the first time he has heard of any of his players participating in the ‘Bodies’ game where participants punch each other until someone quits,” according to a police report.
“High school sports have become profit centers,” Manly said. “It’s not about the competition, or growing, or being healthy. In many high schools, it’s about the money and nothing else and these athletes are looked at as not mattering.
“That’s what happened at Mater Dei.”