STOCKTON -- Historic league rivalries, some of which have existed since World War II, will fade into the pages of high school yearbooks under the realignment plan proposed Tuesday by the Sac-Joaquin Section.
If early reaction is any indication, those rivalries will die hard.
Every league in the Stanislaus District would gain and-or lose teams starting with the 2014-15 school year under the plan, but no leagues face more radical change than the Modesto Metro and Central California conferences. They include public high schools in Modesto, Turlock, Atwater and Merced.
The new MMC would include Oakdale, Atwater and Buhach Colony along with current members Beyer, Davis, Downey and Johansen, with Merced's El Capitan added upon starting varsity sports in 2015 or 2016. The schools would compete at the Division 2 level in the playoffs for most sports, with football continuing its own playoff format.
The new CCC would be considered a Division 1 conference and would absorb Enochs, Gregori and Modesto from the MMC to join current members Golden Valley, Merced, Pitman and Turlock. It would add Modesto Christian for basketball only. All other Modesto Christian sports would move down from the Trans-Valley League to the Southern League.
Merced and Atwater, two of the CCC's oldest rivals, would be in different leagues.
"We're not happy about it," said Merced Union High School Superintendent Scott Scambray. "They're not taking into account that Merced and Golden Valley are losing student population. By 2014-15 and 15-16, both schools will be below 2,000 students. Golden Valley is scheduled to be below Atwater and Buhach Colony. For some reason they are not taking that into account."
Other significant moves would take place in the Western Athletic Conference. Under the initial proposal, Lathrop and Weston Ranch would join the WAC with Patterson and Central Valley moving to the Valley Oak League.
"It would be interesting to mix it up a little," Golden Valley head football coach Dennis Stubbs said. "If it makes sense, I'm all for it. My initital reaction is this doesn't make a lot of sense."
The committee will meet several more times, seeking input and possible changes to the plan from schools and the public before recommending a plan to the section's board of managers for a final vote, targeted for April 24.
At the next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 29, the committee will begin hearing the formal responses and possible counterproposals from the leagues.
Much resistance expected
The section shuffles league membership every four years, using projected enrollment and recent competitive success as primary criteria.
In past realignments, few changes were made between the unveiling of the plan and ratification. However, a section official said Tuesday that this particular cycle could see an unusual amount of resistance to the proposal, particularly from the southern half of the section. The Sac-Joaquin Section includes about 280 schools and stretches from Merced to east of Sacramento and then west to the Vacaville and Napa areas.
Because the details of the realignment proposal had remained rumors until Tuesday, committee members, coaches and school officials could do little but offer instant reactions to the shuffling after seeing the plan for the first time.
"As a member of the committee, this is the first I'm seeing this proposal," said former Davis High Principal Chuck Edmonds, who is a nonvoting co-chair of the realignment committee and commissioner of the MMC.
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Proposed Sac-Joaquin Section Realignment 
