The proposed Virginia
Catholic League will not be forming for the 2016-2017 school year, and opinions
vary as to whether the league will be conceived at all.
Under the initial
concept, the four Catholic high schools from Northern Virginia (Bishop Ireton,
Bishop O’Connell, Saint John Paul the Great, and Pope Paul VI), Benedictine
from Richmond and Bishop Sullivan in Virginia Beach would merge to form a
separate athletic entity.
The possibility of creating
such a league was the topic of a Washington Post story on January 7, 2016 by
Brandon Parker, and was published a week after five of the six school’s athletic
directors met at Saint John Paul the Great in Dumfries to discuss the idea. The
idea of a six-team VCL became realistic in late 2015 as O’Connell withdrew its
football team from the highly competitive Washington Catholic Athletic
Conference (WCAC). For a school to compete as a full member of the WCAC, it
must compete in either basketball or football, or both.
At the time, O’Connell
Athletic Director Joe Wootten told the Post that the “exploratory committee of
sorts” was engaged in “very preliminary” talks. He added that “this is more so
something to look at two or three years down the road.”
Six months later,
little seems to have changed, except that the formation of a VCL for the
2016-17 school year will not happen. As for the future, there is no certainty
of the league forming, mainly because the first meeting has not developed into
a second.
Bill Simmons, Athletic
Director at Ireton, recently said, “I don't see this happening. We talked about
football just to see and fill up our schedules. The developments at (Bishop) Sullivan
make it less likely even that will continue. Northern Virginia schools can get
all of that approach in the WCAC without going to Virginia Beach.”
Rich Hine, Athletic
Director at Bishop Sullivan, told Recruit757 that the Crusaders will stay in
the Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools (TCIS), but that the football
team will play an independent schedule, analogous to Notre Dame, which once competed at the college level in the Big East for all sports except football. At the
time of the Post article, Hine noted that several WCAC teams had called him to
explore the possibility of scheduling a game.
Bishop Sullivan’s
entry into the upper echelon of prep football schools was cemented after the
hiring of coach Chris Scott, who stepped down from the same position at Ocean
Lakes after sporting an 86-10 record, while winning a state title in 2014.
Several of Scott’s star players including Khalan Laborn, are also transferring
to Sullivan, immediately making them one of the better teams in Virginia, private
or public.
Ryan Hall, Athletic
Director at Benedictine, also stated that the league “will not happen” next
year, but left open the remote possibility of a future merger. Hall noted that
there was a lot of work needed if a Virginia Catholic League was to be formed.
“We would need to sit
down and draw up a mission and vision statement – one that matches with each
school’s Catholic identity,” said Hall. “It’s not like you can schedule the
games, hand out a trophy and call it a day.” He added that another meeting would
have to be scheduled in the future to discuss these matters, and “that meeting
has not happened yet.”
On the other side,
Hall added, “We are definitely scheduling each other for football next year.”
Here’s how a Virginia
Catholic League might look
1) Benedictine (2015
record – 10-2 – VISAA Div. I State champions)
2) Bishop Ireton (2015
record – 8-3 – VISAA Div. I runner-up)
3) Bishop O’Connell
(2015 record – 1-8, 0-7 WCAC, #12 in VISAA Div. I)
4) Bishop Sullivan
(2015 record – 4-6, 3-2 TCIS, #6 in VISAA Div. II)
5) Pope Paul VI (2015
record – 2-8, #11 in VISAA Div. I))
6) Saint John Paul the
Great (2015 record – 7-4 - #5 in VISAA Div. I)
In fact, Ireton and
Sullivan will square off in each team’s opening game, and Benedictine will open
their season on August 27th against John Paul the Great. Last fall,
Ireton and Benedictine met in the VISAA Division I state final, a game that
Benedictine won 35-6.
Currently, Ireton,
O’Connell, John Paul the Great and Paul VI compete (John Paul the Great on a
limited basis) in the WCAC, a league which will become more elite with the
recent $16 million donation from Under Armour founder Kevin Plank (’90) to his
alma mater, WCAC member St. John’s College High School. The money will be
spread throughout the school’s programs, but can be used for capital
expenditures, such as enhanced athletic facilities.
Benedictine competes
as an independent school, and all six Catholic schools are also members of the
Virginia Independent School Athletic Association (VISAA) as Division I or II
participants. There are four divisions in the VISAA, and inclusion in Division
I is defined by the enrollment of over 180 students per gender.
However, according to Hine, “VISAA determined, after the 2015 season,
to consolidate the football teams into three divisions - from the four that
were previously in play. With that re-divisioning - Bishop Sullivan was
moved up to Division I, and is now the smallest school in Division I.” All other major VISAA sports have three
divisions, while several (i.e. cross-country and track) are divided into two.
The six schools vary in size from 429 total
students at Sullivan to over 1,150 at O’Connell.
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