Cardinal Newman opts out of North Bay League girls basketball, stirring resentment

A decision by the Cardinal Newman girls basketball program not to participate in North Bay League high school contests in this modified spring season has caused tumult among league participants, who contend the hoops juggernaut isn’t playing fair.

While Cardinal Newman will not field a school team, many of its players have opted to play instead for their club program — one coached and run by Newman head coach Monica Mertle.

Cardinal Newman’s decision, which came after high school schedules were crafted, has created holes in the game calendars of every team in the league. But it has also stoked feelings that the most dominant program in the North Bay — one that has not lost a league contest since January 2014 and has won league games by an average of 46 points over the past four seasons — is only looking out for its own interests.

The issue came to a head at a North Bay League meeting of athletic directors held via Zoom on April 27.

“It isn’t a matter of their not fielding a team; it is that they are fielding a team and taking it elsewhere, not to league,” North Bay League Commissioner Jan Smith Billing said after the meeting, summarizing the complaints she said she’s fielding.

But Mertle said the decision not to play in what she called a modified NBL schedule came from players who never imagined that a high school season would happen this year and who had already committed to their club teams.

But the fact Mertle coaches many of those same players within her Amateur Athletic Union club program, North Bay Elite, worried some officials that players had simply opted out of high school basketball, not out of basketball altogether.

Mertle was not at the AD meeting last week but addressed concerns in an interview Wednesday.

Many of her players have competed on high-level club teams for years and those traditionally have spring seasons. When high school competition looked unlikely, players committed to more robust competition schedules offered through club play, she said.

“There is not a one-size solution to this. The most important thing is to address the needs of the kids,” she said. “I heard what they need out of this, they are the ones who have lost time … I heard them and I am going to advocate for them.”

The high school sports year has been one of incredible ups and downs because of the coronavirus. The return of sports seemingly out of the blue this season has pushed athletes, coaches, parents and school officials to adjust on the fly. In the NBL, no champions will be crowned, no all-league selections will be made and no team will advance to any postseason tournaments.

The unknowns, and the changing landscape, led many student athletes to make different choices this year than they otherwise might, Mertle said.

She pointed to the controversy over the establishment of club football this winter, which led, in part, to Santa Rosa City Schools teams opting not to play some squads, including Cardinal Newman, that officials felt had access to training and conditioning for months while Santa Rosa City Schools athletes were sidelined by district-mandated restrictions.

“Would they refuse to play us like they did the football team?” she said. “This was probably the hardest year of their lives. Academically, it was incredibly hard for our kids. I think they need to do what is best for them right now.”

Mertle credited Smith Billing for the extraordinary work it has taken to craft schedules and arrangements that take into account evolving safety protocols this year. And she said that when it became clear that her squad was committed to club basketball, she and school athletic director Jeff Nielson sent out an email to Cardinal Newman students to gauge interest in fielding a girls basketball team to represent the school and compete in the NBL.

Two students responded in the affirmative, she and Nielson said.

“We tried to make a team from the kids who are not paying club basketball … We did try to do that. There was just not enough interest with every sport running concurrently,” she said.

“We don’t have a huge population of kids running around,” Nielson told ADs at last week’s meeting. “We have about 200 girls total on campus, so it does make it difficult.”

Many of Cardinal Newman’s student athletes participate in multiple sports, and with soccer, basketball, volleyball, softball, swimming and track and field all happening at the same time, athletes feel stretched thin, Mertle said.

While rules that in years past have prohibited athletes from participating in high school and club teams at the same time have been lifted during the pandemic, Mertle said pushing players into schedules with four and five games a week is not safe.

But none of that erased feelings of resentment from NBL leaders at the athletic directors’ meeting last week.

“There is a lot of animosity, I think, and I hate to say that, kind of around the girls basketball program because of the lopsided contests that go on,” said Dean Haskins, Montgomery High athletic director and lead AD for the Santa Rosa City Schools District. “Now, with this decision, it feels like it’s a decision, a choice, of not playing league and going and playing club instead. From my perspective, it doesn’t feel good as a league member just to see that from one program.”

A number of NBL schools have not been able to field teams this school year as schedules and shifting health and safety protocols have forced officials to scramble to pull off any semblance of normal competition. Among others, Analy didn’t field a wrestling team, Healdsburg does not have a volleyball team and Elsie Allen was unable to field a track and field squad after only playing junior varsity football.

But in those cases, it was a matter of too few kids willing to play — whether because of safety, fitness or time concerns — not kids opting to play on a club squad instead.

“Elsie is always on a razor’s edge with sports,” Elsie Allen athletic director Tyler Ahlborn said. “Our athletes aren’t choosing to participate somewhere else with the same coach; they are just choosing not to participate at all and think that is a pretty key distinction.”

Nielson acknowledged the discontent among his colleagues.

“It’s a crazy year; it’s a year like nobody has ever gone through,” he said. “Everybody finds themselves in a spot where they don’t want to be.”

But criticism came from within, too.

Cardinal Newman assistant athletic director and longtime Cardinals booster Jerry Bonfigli said the decision not to field a team gives the entire Cardinal Newman community “a black eye.”

“I was not in on any of these discussions, none of these discussions. I did not know until the email went out,” he said of Mertle’s communication to league leaders that the Cardinals were out. “I’m not going to apologize for what happened because I wasn’t informed. But, I mean, it’s just a bad look.”

Both Mertle and Nielson said the decision is for this year only and does not indicate a desire for the Cardinals to not participate in the league going forward.

“We want to be part of the league,” Nielson said. “It was not a desire not to participate, but to do what we felt was in the best interests of our students.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.