The Narbonne High School (Harbor City, Calif.) girls basketball team was reinstated to the CIF LA City Section Open Division playoffs Tuesday after winning an appeal over the color of their uniforms.
Narbonne (23-5), the top seed in the open division, won their first-round playoff game 60-52 over University High to advance to the semifinals against 5-seed View Park. In their 57-52 win over View Park, Narbonne, whose school colors are green and “vegas gold,” wore jerseys with pink lettering to support breast cancer awareness (they also wore them against Uni High, too). According to LA City Section bylaws, teams may only wear school colors and must submit a waiver to wear something else.
City Section commissioner John Aguirre ruled that Narbonne would have to forfeit their wins over Uni and View Park because of the violation, but Narbonne appealed and a 3-person panel overturned the decision and reinstated them. The Gauchos will face Palisades in the City Section Open Division final Saturday at Cal-State Dominguez Hills. If they win the game, they will be eligible for the state playoffs.
However, Narbonne did not entirely avoid penalty.
Coach Victoria Sanders will not be allowed to coach the team the rest of the season; Narbonne will be on probation next year; and the school will not be allowed to host any home playoff games next season.
“The attempt was to meet the spirit of the rule and place kids first,” the appeal panel said in a statement about their decision, via the Los Angeles Times.
Coach Sanders said she could accept the penalty, and noted that she did not know a waiver was necessary to wear different color uniforms.
That Narbonne was even kicked out of the playoffs due to this rule shows you how screwed up the CIF is as an organization. You may recall that last year they made a baseball team forfeit a playoff win because of illegal batting practice. LBS also has a family friend who was forced to sit out an entire season because of CIF’s Draconian transfer rules and their crappy appeals process. They frequently fail to apply common sense, unfortunately.
