City Section begins operations as independent section [Video]

There were no fireworks launched last week to signify a new era in high school sports in Los Angeles.

It was mostly quiet in Arleta, home of the new headquarters for the newly independent Los Angeles City Section, which on July 1 officially broke away from being under the control of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The new commissioner is John Aguirre, who replaces the retiring Barbara Fiege. His assistant is Vicki Lagos. Together, they will be following a path similar to what the Southern Section does -- coordinate and manage playoffs, enforce the rules of the CIF, deal with scheduling issues, make decisions on athletic eligibility and answer to a board of managers.

The LAUSD will have its own athletics office that will be in charge of issues surrounding transportation, liability and coaching education.

One big new component in the City Section is that individual managers will be hired for each sport, handling everything from seeding meetings to running the championship games. For football, Garfield Athletic Director Guillermo Gonzalez was chosen to take charge.

The City Section also is in the process of hiring a marketing director, who will be important in helping raise funds to pay for running a new section that will start out primarily relying on schools paying dues to fund its operations.

On Friday, Lagos gave me a tour (see video above) of the new office. The phones finally work. The number is 818-767-0800.

Of note, only two transfer requests have come in for the 2013-14 school year. Let’s hope athletic directors realize that Lagos will be in charge of reviewing transfers under the City Section rules. Also, a mandatory meeting for football coaches is set for Saturday at UCLA.

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