Netters:
The New Jersey HS CC season opened today on a muted note with the
aptyly named "Seanon Opener" at Darlington Park, just south of the NY border
in Manwah.
Jesse Mizzone of Passaic Valley, one of the favorites to succeed
Erin Donohie as AG champion this year, won her race by more than two minutes
in 18:10, equivalent to a 19:00 or a little better at Van Cortlandt. She is
in mid-season form, having taken little time off this summer and having tun
impressive times in a couple of recent road races. She is a first cousin of
Amy Mizzone, who starred at two Division III colleges a few years ago.
The meet was reduced a lot by the imperious decision of the Northern
New Jersey Interscholastic League, the state;s oldest athletic association
(born in 1910) not to have any competition among its schools until Monday.
The problem with this decision is twofold: 1) the failure of the Ads
to realize that it is one thing to postpone a dual competition in soccer,
tennis or football and quite another to force a CC (or track) team out of an
open competition. The dual competition can (and is) always made up; the open
meet is simply held without the missing schools. 2}while the league may have
a right to order schools to postpone any competition which leads to a league
championship, it has (in NJ at least) no power over what its schools do in
open (or what Eurpeans would call :"friendly") competition. That is the
purview entirely of the local school authorities, a fact which has been
recognized in this crisis by our state association.
Anyone with an IQ above 50 would recognize the difference in each
case.
Ed Grant
