Could Beyer be on its way out of the MMC despite its success?

Doug Severe enjoys a good joke, even at his own expense.

The Beyer High School athletic director and football coach often makes light of the fact his school, though blessed with its share of championships and outstanding talent, doesn’t have a football stadium to call its own.

Last fall, like clockwork, Severe would lead his weekly report to the Modesto Quarterback Club with this well-worn one-liner: “Well, we’re still undefeated at home,” a quip that would draw a chorus of laughs and snickers.

The truth is Beyer never has hosted a varsity football game on campus, and deep down, that gnaws at Severe. Instead, the Patriots take a bus to Downey or Johansen or Gregori for their “home” games.

With realignment talks growing louder and louder and the Sac-Joaquin Section’s first official meeting less than six months away, the Modesto City Schools’ stadium issue could become no laughing matter.

Beyer, Davis and Johansen have been linked to a possible move to the Western Athletic Conference, a league with smaller schools that play in a lower division.

In December, the section will begin to seriously explore realigning its member schools to create better balance among its leagues, based on enrollment, competitive equity and transportation.

Those three factors threaten to pull apart – and possibly blow up – the Modesto Metro Conference, for the most part a seven-team league with all of its members answering to one school district. In recent years, the MMC has been divided into two factions: the haves and have-nots.

While Downey, Beyer, Gregori, Modesto and Enochs have reveled in victory and achievement in the athletic arena, Davis and Johansen have struggled mightily.

In two years since the last realignment, the Spartans have won 34.9 percent of their games in the three major boys sports: football, basketball and baseball. Johansen has fared even worse, winning just 22.3 percent of its games. Neither school has won a major league title, and only the Davis boys basketball team has advanced to the playoffs.

In that respect, Davis and Johansen have made themselves vulnerable to the section’s swift hand. Beyer’s success may have nothing to do with its departure.

“If a committee convened today, they’d look at Beyer and see how well they competed,” MMC commissioner Ed Felt said. “That’s a huge contributing factor – competitive equity. They might not be as big as the Enochs of the world, but they sure do compete. In my opinion, that plays a huge factor in the decision-making process with the committee.”

It may not matter. Beyer is one of the smallest schools in the MMC, and Severe believes it will be the smallest when school begins. With a projected enrollment in the 1,700s, Beyer would fit in the WAC with the likes of Patterson and Pacheco, among others; or the Valley Oak League, with Oakdale, East Union and Manteca.

“We’ve been competitive,” Severe said. “This last year was a really good year for us, athletically, at least in the major sports. But I still think because of us being smaller, I think they’ll look to move us. It will hurt. Some parents won’t like it.”

Should Beyer, Davis and Johansen move to, say, the WAC, Modesto City Schools may run into scheduling issues. Where it once had the luxury of booking three home games for six local teams during league play, MCS would have to contend with MMC and WAC schedules.

Here’s the hypothetical that haunts Severe, turning those luncheon jokes into a real concern: If Beyer, Downey, Johansen and Gregori are scheduled to host league games on the same Friday evening in 2018 and beyond, what happens to Beyer? Is that game moved to a Thursday or Saturday? But to move that game would likely require the cooperation of two school districts.

Today, Severe said those types of situations are easily remedied because of the working relationship each MCS principal and athletic director has with one another. Modesto High’s Donnie Wallace serves as the MMC athletic director. Like Severe and Wallace, Davis’ Tim Garcia and Johansen’s Scott Sacuskie are athletic directors and football coaches.

“It’s kind of nice. I’ve only been an athletic director in this situation, and it seems to work,” Severe said. “I’ve heard horror stories when you have two or three or four or five school districts and everyone’s trying to get what’s best for them.”

Felt isn’t sure convenience and proximity will tip the scales in favor of the seven city schools. The stadium issue, he said, doesn’t fall under the section’s primary evaluators: enrollment and competitive equity.

“This is a great group. It’s one of my favorite days of the month when we meet,” Felt said. “It’s very convenient to have all seven schools in one league ... but that’s not one of the big factors.

“To keep all seven schools together is a huge convenience, not only in relationships but sharing facilities. Having said that, the committee will have to weigh convenience against competitive equity.”

Stadium use isn’t his only concern.

Severe also points to transportation costs and the student-athlete and parents’ desire to play in a Division I league as valid reasons a move out of the MMC could be debilitating for the school. He believes there inevitably would be a percentage of his parents, however big or small, that would be upset with Beyer – a school with arguably the best baseball, football and basketball teams in the MCS this past year – dropping in league and division.

Those parents, Severe said, may choose to transfer.

So what’s the solution?

If the MMC can’t exist as currently constructed, he would like to see an expanded MMC with two divisions of five teams, incorporating Ceres, Central Valley, Turlock and Pitman. This would ensure all seven MCS schools would abide by the same guidelines while welcoming growing schools into a higher league. Central Valley, Turlock and Pitman also would bring a measure of football clout.

“Iron sharpens iron,” Severe said. “It’s either going to enhance your ability or exploit it. Bringing in Turlock and Pitman intensifies the league. They would make our top programs work harder.”

Severe also would like to see a stronger enforcement of the boundaries, along with other steps, to level out enrollment. Most of all, though, he’d like to see the section leave the seven MCS schools intact.

“I’d love to stay together,” Severe said, “but I don’t know that we’ll have a say in it.”

This story was originally published July 18, 2016 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Could Beyer be on its way out of the MMC despite its success?."