Benefield: New North Coast Section commissioner hopes coin flips are in the past

In Pat Cruickshank’s new office at the North Coast Section offices in San Ramon is an official coin issued by the National Federation of State High School Associations.

On one side it reads, “Be a sport.” There is an image of two clasping hands. The coin is still in its wrapper.

If Cruickshank, now in his initial weeks as the new NCS commissioner who oversees athletic programs at 180 schools, has one wish for his first year on the job, I’m betting it’s this: That he never has to take that coin out of the case.

It was a coin, just like that one, remember, that ended the football season of the No. 1-ranked Cardinal Newman Cardinals in 2018. It was probably the defining moment of one of the more trying periods in the history of the section.

For the second year in a row, wildfires had devastated entire communities - not only destroying homes and lives, but creating poor air quality that put athletic seasons in limbo for weeks. Day after day of cancellations forced the hands of section officials who had to decide, hastily, how to advance teams through the playoffs.

In football, the majority of area teams voted to finish their season with a section title game and forgo a shot at the NorCal tournament. Cardinal Newman, playing in Division 3, liked its chances in NorCals and opted to gamble on a coin flip for a chance to play deeper into the season. They lost the flip.

Clearly, the whole coin thing still stings a little.

When North Bay League athletic directors met for their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday and NBL Commissioner Jan Smith Billing handed out credit card-like entry passes for NCS events, some ADs began to chuckle and look over at Cardinal Newman’s Jeff Nielson and Jerry Bonfigli.

For years, the passes have been a solid color. The 2019-20 version? It’s covered with an image of a stack of coins. Nielson and Bonfigli took the jokes in stride, but maybe that is because neither they nor anyone else are likely to be put in that position again.

Officials may have to show cards that have coins depicted on them to gain entry to games this season, but they won’t have to stand by and watch any team get eliminated by way of a coin flip. Changes are afoot and have been, almost since the moment that now-infamous coin landed on heads back in December.

It will likely be Cruickshank’s most notable piece of governance in his early days as commissioner.

Cruickshank is a longtime basketball coach. And a good one. His Heritage High School Patriots won the NCS Division 1 boys basketball title in 2018. He was an athletic director for years. He knows that contests should be decided on the field of play.

And he understands that after two years of devastating wildfires, officials need black-and-white plans in place outlining how to handle sports and schedules and championships in a time of chaos.

“When it was all said and done, after last year it was more, ‘We just have to do this,’” Cruickshank said. “Here we are just hoping and praying that we aren’t in that situation, that we don’t have to resort to this, but the fact of the matter is, we have been in it two years in a row.”

But Cruickshank is quick to point out that it wasn’t longtime Commissioner Gil Lemmon who called for the coin flip. In fact, Lemmon supported a section staff proposal to advance the team with the higher seed. But at a hastily convened teleconference of the executive committee, the members - with a considerable contingent absent - voted in favor of coming down to a coin flip should the skies not clear in time to actually play the game.

Lemmon, and his staff, had to follow the decree of the executive committee.

“Ultimately it was the schools’ decision,” Cruickshank said.

And it was players and coaches who were left to deal with the decision.

“It still stings a little bit that we never got the chance to finish the season on the field, which we absolutely wanted to do,” Nielson said.

That said, Nielson said Cardinal Newman officials knew full well the pressures and constraints a natural disaster had put on everyone.

“It was a much, much bigger deal than just us,” he said.

And still, there were demands to not let it happen again.

“I think we knew there needed to be a better system,” said Cruickshank, who was assistant commissioner at the time. “We didn’t want the fact that we had to call the executive committee in. We know that was difficult. It was difficult logistically.”

And that’s where the past 10 months of discussion come in. And that’s where the upcoming votes of approval ought to lay it to rest. No more hastily made decisions.

On Monday, the section’s Sports Advisory Committee will meet in Novato and consider a new list of criteria which will be used to determine how to navigate postseason play when facing “time constraints that make it impossible/improbable to complete the process of advancement to the CIF Championships through actual competition.”

If it passes Monday, it moves to the executive committee, which meets on Sept. 4 in San Ramon. Then it’s on to the Board of Managers meeting Sept. 27 in Walnut Creek. A vote there will put any change of policy in place. Implementation will be immediate.

The proposal being considered Monday includes eight options, listed in descending order: Changing game time, changing game day, moving the game to the region of the higher seed, changing to the home site of the lower seed, securing a neutral site within the section, securing a neutral site outside the section, competing on a Sunday (pending CIF approval) and advancing teams that have the higher seed.

No coin flip.

“I remember being kind of surprised by it,” Cruickshank said of the now-infamous coin flip. “I thought, ‘Wow, we could come down to this?’”

If it seems odd to plan for unforeseeable events, it’s not. Horrific wildfires and unhealthy air have wreaked havoc on prep schedules two years in a row.

“Everybody we have talked to feels pretty good about it,” Cruickshank said. “I think it takes away the unknown.”

Nielson said if the eight options offer more opportunity for games to be played, he’s all for it.

“We are for any solution that gets kids to be able to play,” he said. “Playing the games - that’s what the kids want to do.”

Of course, months of discussions could lead to nothing. The SAC could kill it. The executive committee could vote it down. But Cruickshank believes the process has been lengthy and inclusive.

And still, nothing is carved in stone.

“If we are going through it and during the year someone comes up with a brilliant solution?” he said.

They are all ears, essentially.

Cruickshank said it’s a hope-for-the-best-but-plan-for-theworst kind of thing.

“If there is a way to do it better, we are willing to do it,” he said.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield.