If you’ve been following the saga of the Archbishop Murphy football team and its string of forfeit wins on social media, it feels like you need to be in one of two camps.
The first camp says “private schools just need to play private schools.” The other camp says “These teams forfeiting just need to man up and play the game.”
I’m not sure I’m comfortable in either camp.
The more you learn about this situation, the better you understand that there really isn’t any easy solution. And if you’re looking for someone to point a finger of blame, you’ll quickly learn you don’t possess enough fingers.
So I’m going to try to help you understand what I’ve learned, and I hope you keep an open mind.
Let’s start at the beginning. Archbishop Murphy is a private Catholic school in Everett that competes in Class 2A despite having a 1A enrollment. And while the Wildcats’ football team has been a perennial power in 2A football, they have never won a 2A state title.
Last season, the Wildcats were a member of the split-classification Cascade Conference along with 2A schools Cedarcrest, Granite Falls and Lakewood and 1A schools King’s, Cedar Park Christian, South Whidbey and Sultan.
Archbishop Murphy went 12-1 last season, losing in the 2A state semifinals. This fall, the Wildcats have 16 seniors back from that 12-1 team, including several players who are very big and very talented, drawing attention from college programs.
In January after the WIAA set the new classification cycle, a proposal was made to combine the Cascade Conference with the neighboring Northwest Conference for football only, forming two leagues — one comprised of 2A schools and the other of 1A schools.
Makes sense, right? Well …
The proposal was shot down by the principals from the Cascade Conference by a vote of 5-3.
While we don’t know how the vote broke down, we can assume Archbishop Murphy was in favor of the proposal. And since Sultan athletic director Scott Sifferman said he was surprised the proposal went down to defeat, we can assume Sultan was a yes vote. The third yes vote likely went to Lakewood.
Why is that? Well, right after the aforementioned proposal was rejected the AD from Lakewood got a call from his good friend, the AD from Lynden, inviting Lakewood to join the Northwest Conference. That would give the league eight teams for its 2A-only football league and 14 teams for its split-classification league in all other sports. Nice, round numbers.
Lakewood accepted the offer, leaving the Cascade Conference with seven schools and even more competitively lopsided than it previously was.
So why did those Cascade schools reject the proposal? Well, the Northwest Conference has some good football teams. At 1A, there is Meridian, Mount Baker, Nooksack Valley. Sound familiar? It seems like every year, one of those teams is knocking out a Trico League team in the state playoffs.
Plus, joining up with the Northwest Conference would require additional travel for two Fridays each fall.
So that means three schools that forfeited to Archbishop Murphy — South Whidbey, Granite Falls and Cedar Park Christian — appear to have voted against a proposal that could have resolved this issue back in January.
Archbishop Murphy coach Jerry Jensen, who also is the school’s AD, has been looking for a new league for his football team for a while now.
He tried to join the 4A/3A Wesco Conference, but was rebuffed. He approached the 3A Metro League in Seattle, which has a division that includes private schools like Eastside Catholic, Bishop Blanchet, Seattle Prep and O’Dea. But that idea was not warmly received by the Metro, likely because those schools didn’t want to have to travel to Everett to play the Wildcats.
No one likes bus rides.
So Archbishop Murphy was left to play in the Cascade Conference, and now league opponents are dropping off the Wildcats’ schedule like autumn leaves.
And it’s hard to blame the schools who are choosing to forfeit.
“It’s not that we’re afraid to play the game, it’s an injury issue,” Granite Falls coach Tim Dennis. “(It’s) because of the size disparity between the linemen. They have 300-pound linemen. And we have sophomores (who weigh) 210, 220 pounds and starting on varsity. So that’s the issue … the size disparity.”
That’s a legitimate concern. I’m not sure I’d want my kid going up against players who are older, better and 80 to 90 pounds heavier.
The problem with forfeits is that they don’t come with a hefty price for the forfeiting team. The team is forfeiting a game it was going to lose anyway, and the forfeit leaves that team with an eight-game schedule instead of nine.
Meanwhile, half of Archbishop Murphy’s season is gone.
And to the people who say “private schools should play private schools,” how do you explain that the most recent league foe to forfeit to Archbishop Murphy is Cedar Park Christian — a private school with a 1A enrollment, just like Archbishop Murphy?
The issue is a bit more complex than that, and it’s not a problem that can be solved with a tweet.
I have some ideas, but time and space here prohibit me from sharing them. Maybe I’ll do that later. I just hope I’ve given you a bit more perspective.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached at (360) 735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
