Mt. Whitney disbanded JV team citing safety reasons
By: Krissy Hetherington
With only two football games remaining, Mt. Whitney’s athletic program announced they’d be dissolving their junior varsity team and bringing players up to varsity for the rest of the 2019 season.
Mt. Whitney’s JV team had 13 players for their third league game against El Diamante, and the school decided to protect their players, said Nathan Chamberlain, Mt. Whitney’s head coach. Mt. Whitney is 0-8 and 0-4 in league.
Without a JV team to play in this year’s Cowhide, Redwood’s JV season had an abrupt ending that angered Redwood’s coaches, players and parents. This rivalry event is central to Redwood’s culture, and now Redwood’s 60-player JV team is robbed of this experience for the first time, said Roy Orosco, Redwood’s JV coach.
“It was difficult, the kids worked really hard, but with a lot of injuries and concussions, playing with only 13 players wouldn’t be safe,” Chamberlain said.
Throughout Mt. Whitney’s JV season, it was a struggle to practice and play with so few players. After playing El Diamante, the school made the decision to move the remaining JV team to varsity, which now has 50 players, Chamberlain said.
“This shows a massive failure by Mt. Whitney’s administration and football coaches to promote a positive and inclusive culture for their campus, students and student-athletes.”
Redwood JV Coach, Roy Orosco
Redwood’s JV players were disappointed that they didn’t get a chance to face their rivals, and they lost their chance to redeem themselves after a tough loss to El Diamante.
Last week’s game against El Diamante came after Mt. Whitney’s decision and Redwood’s performance was poor, losing 38-0.
“I feel robbed of the experience to showcase our hard work throughout the season and we didn’t get to participate in the Cowhide tradition for football.”
Kolby Howard, starting tight-end for Redwood JV Football
Meanwhile, Redwood’s freshman team won the league championship with a 28-6 win over the 8-2 Pioneers, finishing with an undefeated season.
Parents were also angered by Mt Whitney’s choice, commenting their frustrations on a Facebook post for a story from the Visalia Times-Delta about the decision.
“What some Mt. Whitney parents are not understanding is [Mt. Whitney] boys are still getting to play in a game either on freshman or varsity. How is that fair to the 60 players who are on Redwood’s JV team who have all worked hard to get let down by having their game taken away,” a parent commented on the Facebook post.
Reflecting on the JV season, Orosco said he was upset that his players didn’t have a chance to show how they’ve improved.
“The whole idea of JV is to get better from day one to the end of the season and prepare for varsity next season,” Orosco said.
“JV plays an important role in our program, and as far as them not playing in Cowhide is very disappointing because they don’t get to play their last game and they don’t get to participate in the tradition,” Redwood varsity head coach Kevin Sharton said.
During Sharton’s first year of coaching, he coached a freshman/sophomore team at Strathmore with a team of 18 players. Sometimes he could only play 13 to 14 players. After he left, those players went on to win a Valley Championship.
“Those players really improved during that season and became better players from that experience,” Sharton said.
Former football head coach for 21 years, John Yavasile, experienced a drop off of athletes at Redwood when El Diamante opened in 2002.
“We had 12 freshmen players after starting with 22, and 30 on JV, but we never considered cancelling a game. It’s not fair to the kids. I think it’s important to have the three levels, it’s never been done in Visalia history and I think [the decision] was a mistake.”
He said he was especially concerned about player safety for this year’s Cowhide game.
“When we brought players up to Varsity, they had to be certain level players, big enough, strong enough, that’s why you don’t see many sophomores pulled up for those reasons so when you just pull up a whole group that might not be as talented and prepared, it could turn into a safety issue,” said Yavasile.
Matt Sozinho, Redwood’s athletic director, was frustrated by Mt. Whitney’s decision, and acknowledged that a lot of factors go into dissolving a team. This isn’t a problem for Redwood athletics, the school’s numbers are only increasing.
“This happens a lot with schools, sometimes teams don’t have the players they’d like to have, and I hope this is a one-time deal for them,” Sozinho said. “Safety comes into play, but anytime you get rid of something it’s hard to get it back. I wish them the best, I hope that every school we play has a full complement of teams so that our athletes get that full experience.”