OUTLOOK ON NEW FOOTHILL AREA RELEAGUING – John Glenn’s future with new releaguing promises to be a blessing

June 23, 2025

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

This is the third part in a series of area schools involved in the upcoming Foothill Area releaguing that will begin for the 2026-2027 school year. The 20 schools involved in what will be a new conference are from the current 605 League, Del Rio League, Gateway League and Mid-Cities League. This is the third time since the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year that area schools have been involved in releaguing.

Numbers don’t lie and in the age of competitive equity, John Glenn High was one school which pleaded its case to get out of the Suburban League and into a new one, which was the 605 League. A 10-year spreadsheet of the league records from 2007-2016 of the former seven-member league was presented and of the 18 sports that Glenn fielded at that time, only two sports had a winning percentage of over .400 in league contests.

Since the 605 League began in the fall of 2018, some sports that had struggled in the Suburban League improved a bit, but not enough to be noticeable. Now, with the proposed 20-school conference on the horizon, those sports that had never come close to an automatic berth in the CIF-Southern Section playoffs will get the best chance, probably in the history of their programs.

The feeling for Linda Lastre, who has been at Glenn since 2003, but as an athletic director since 2007, was a positive one. She knew that the lower-tiered sports like cross country, softball, tennis and girls soccer, to name a few, would have a chance to finish in third place in the new league, thus ending long playoff droughts.

“I felt good because I knew that ultimately, no matter what happened, we were going to get what we wanted with the releague concept,” said Lastre. “I thought it was interesting because we didn’t get a lot of schools reaching out trying to defend their stance, or their proposal, I should say. In the past, when you releague, it’s a lot of networking and communicating and making sure people know where you stand in regard to your own proposal.”

She added that when the 605 League athletic directors walked into the May 1 Foothill Area releaguing meeting, they wouldn’t disrupt anybody; that they will leave their proposal as is.

“I started asking [other administrators from other schools] some questions about their own school and what they thought,” said Lastre. “Because they would be the ones really being disruptive with all the proposals. They were initially in disagreement, but [after] contacting their superintendents at the time, they said, ‘let’s do it’, because they were used to driving 30 miles to get beat up. That’s what kind of persuaded me to [vote] on Proposal C.”

In addition to combining the 605 League, Del Rio League, Gateway League and Mid-Cities League to form the 20-school league, Proposal C would have the Foothill League remain together, the Pacific League merge with the Rio Hondo League, plus add Gabrielino High, for a third league and combine the Almont League with the Mission Valley League for a fourth league.

During its time in the 605 League, and not including wrestling, Glenn athletics won only one league championship (2019 football), came in second place four other times and third place another six times. Of the major sports not named wrestling, the Eagles have finished in sixth place 23 times and fifth place 20 times.

The last 10 years of the Suburban League, Glenn baseball and boys volleyball reached the playoffs four times, girls basketball three times, girls soccer and girls volleyball twice and boys soccer once. Of those 16 times, only the 2006-2007 girls basketball team, coached by Lastre, and the 2015 baseball team, coached by Jack Brooks, won a league title.

The current 605 League coaches and athletic directors will agree in saying that the reason why the league was formed was to create more competitive equity as La Mirada High and Mayfair High had the dominant athletic programs across the board. This time around, it’s much different according to Lastre.

“The trends of athletics,” she said. “I think conferencing is becoming a trend. You saw it happen in Orange County, first, and everyone was like, ‘oh gosh, what’s going to happen over there’? But it worked out, and it is the trend of athletics right now; of seeing just competitive games. Maybe you drive a little bit further; maybe your transportation costs a little bit. But it gives kids an opportunity to play in a game that’s competitive.”

But while Glenn thought the 605 League would be more to its liking with more competitive games, lately it has gone south for the Eagles. Enrollment has been on the decline with the latest numbers showing a figure of 697 for the high school and 151 for Southeast Academy, located across the street from Glenn. It’s numbers like those that has had grumblings about the future status of the high school on the far eastern side of the City of Norwalk, or some of its athletic programs.

“That’s why the 605 League was formed with the competitive equity model,” said Lastre. “It thrived, and it was great, and now we’re at a point where our school at Glenn has a small enrollment. The numbers are low, and it became almost to a point where we were scared of what if we don’t field a football team? What if we just did our own league? And I think because we have so much respect for each other within the 605 League, that’s where the conversation started taking a turn of we need to start thinking outside the box of maybe a conference model might be good for us.”

Lastre is quick to point out that she and her administrators have had honest conversations with the 605 League about the fate of the school and its declining enrollment numbers and that of its football program. She continued by saying it’s a conversation that lingers, but there has not been a ‘real’ conversation about the school closing. Though, it’s in the back of everyone’s heads of what would happen.

The 2024 football team was hit hard with numbers as anywhere from 19-23 players suited up on any given week. The annual Mayor’s Cup game with crosstown rival Norwalk High was cancelled as was the last game of the regular season against Pioneer High. Even the game against Cerritos High was played entirely under running clock conditions, something you see only in the fourth quarter or sometimes the second half.

The first two years of the league, the football team earned an automatic playoff berth, the baseball and boys soccer team finished in the top three. But coming out of the pandemic, Lastre saw a complete turnaround with her athletic programs, and not for the good.

“Covid really messed us up, and I hate saying that because it was five years ago,” she said. “But darn, coming out of those Covid years with no sports, and then trying to bring them back, and kids not wanting to come back…we really saw a true decline in our number of athletes. But then we saw some of the other teams in the 605 League still continue to build their numbers, and we were going in the opposite direction at Glenn where all of a sudden, we had very lopsided scores. A league that was created for competitive equity…there was no more competitive equity for us in a lot of sports, especially our highlight sports. That’s when I knew we needed a change.”

With the new 20-school conference, Lastre admitted her teams might not be a league champion, but her goal is that the scores won’t be lopsided, using the Jan. 7, 2025 girls basketball game against Pioneer as an example when the Eagles lost 98-4.

Since Covid, Glenn has had a few bright moments with few athletes. The 2021-2022 boys basketball team, with seven or eight players, had a 14-13 record, finished in third place and advanced to the quarterfinals. That has been the program’s lone winning season in at least 30 years.

When the teams are put into their new leagues on a sport-by-sport basis in two years, it’s likely that most of Glenns’ teams will be in the third or fourth league, which would suggest the lower-tiered leagues. For the football program, it would go into the third league, which is predicted to have six teams as Oxford Academy and Whitney High don’t have football programs. Most likely, schools like California High, Firebaugh High, Lynwood High, Pioneer and Whittier High would be likely candidates for that third league. But again, league placements will be determined by 2025 performances.

“It’s going to level the playing field in so many sports,” said Lastre. “There are a lot of schools just like us, too, where their programs might be struggling. They just want to play a competitive game and make it fair for the kids.”

While the new conference will bring relief to many of Glenn’s athletic programs, the wrestling program figures to be bumped up into the big boys league. From 2012-2016, the boys wrestling program had a Suburban League winning percentage of .567, good for fourth of the seven teams in that league. That trend got better as members of the 605 League, but now the program will most likely be in the first of the four leagues with four other schools.

“They’re our strongest program,” said Lastre. “But at the same time, I have a coach that likes to compete, and I have a team that likes to compete. So, they look for the challenge; it’s not real fun if you always easily win. But Cerritos and Glenn have been close in wrestling.”

Of the many challenges, or differences that Lastre will have to deal with, unlike the 605 League or even the Suburban League is the number of voices that will be spoken and heard. When putting 20 athletic directors in a room, and some schools having co-athletic directors, and 20 principals, Lastre said there’s going to be a tendency for some arguments and disagreements along the way.

The one positive out of this is that at some point in the past, all 20 schools have scheduled non-league events with each other and they have had conversations through email.

“A lot of these AD’s have been around for a while,” said Lastre. “It’s just trying to take a piece of everything. The Del Rio League was a great league, the 605 League was a great league, the Suburban Valley Conference is doing well. You take these pieces of a puzzle, and you try to make them even better. So how do we all plug in to make this conference legitimate and thrive, right? That’s going to be the biggest challenge.”

She continued by saying despite all the challenges that lie ahead, stemming from scheduling to transportation and such, change can be scary but change is good and anything they can do that will benefit the kids…that’s what they are there for at the end of the day.

“Knowing that other people have already done it, it will be okay,” said Lastre of navigating through the winter sports scheduling. “We’ll figure it out; there will be some bumps of course, but you’re going to learn from every game. Every time we play, we’re going to fine tune it each year. I’m not too stressed out about the logistical part of it because I think we’ll figure it out as we go, and then we’ll get better at it.”