OUTLOOK ON NEW FOOTHILL AREA RELEAGUING – Gahr excited about being part of the new, bigger conference

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

This is the fifth 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.

One could argue that competitive equity for the Gahr High football program and the notion of releaguing began in the early 2000s. The Gladiators had lost 14 straight San Gabriel Valley League football games and 23 overall from 1999-2001.
The program became a freelance team in 2002, went 7-3 and Gahr athletic director Greg Marshall took over the program from Glen Fisher the next season. The Gladiators would go 15-15 the next three seasons before moving back to the SGVL and since then, the program has not gone through a winless overall season.

During the four seasons as a freelance team, the Gladiators played a hodgepodge of teams from as far west as Carpinteria High in the first year to all seven former Suburban League schools in each of the next three years. Thoughts of shifting to the Suburban League, or even the Del Rio League, wasn’t even a blip on the radar because it was different back then. You didn’t have as many student athletes transferring as much as you do today.

Fast forward to the present day, and Marshall feels comfortable with his athletic teams about to be more competitive with teams from the 605 League and the Del Rio League as the new 20-school conference is 13 months away from beginning.

“I thought it was the perfect way to go because in our conference, it’s not big enough to really separate competitive equity,” said Marshall of his initial thoughts. “Some people would get caught in the dead zone where they’re not that bad, but they’re not that good.

“Dominguez and La Mirada were never going to go down [from the Gateway League],” he continued, referring to their football programs. “The difference is Paramount is really good again.”

Still speaking on behalf of the football program, Gahr was in a three-way tie for first place in the Mid-Cities League with Bellflower High and Norwalk High 2022, the first year of the 11-member Suburban Valley Conference. However, Gahr was left out of the playoffs, prompting the need for a sixth football school for the Mid-Cities League. Enter Compton Early College, which went winless in 10 games last season, but made life for the other five schools in the league easier as far as getting and automatic berth to the CIF-Southern Section playoffs.

Marshall had hoped that by keeping Compton Early College, it would solve most of the problems. But just keeping everything the same wasn’t good enough for the Del Rio League as La Serna High was claiming league titles across the board at a 95 percent rate, leaving the rest of the league wanting to look for options, including joining forces with the three other leagues.

“That was the first thought,” said Marshall. “But we were stuck because everyone we would ask to come in…they wouldn’t commit; they weren’t ready to come in and play in the [Gateway] League.”

With La Serna winning 95 percent of the Del Rio League titles, Cerritos High doing nearly the same in the 605 League, and La Mirada High and Mayfair High owning many league championships of the old Suburban League, the need for a bigger conference was necessary.

Since the 605 League was formed, the major Gahr athletic programs have experienced nearly the same number of league championships as being in the middle of their respective leagues or finishing in the bottom two of the old SGVL or the current Gateway League and Mid-Cities League. This past school year, the boys soccer team and the girls tennis team won the Mid-Cities League while baseball and softball finished in second place in the Gateway League while boys tennis and girls soccer took the same spots in the Mid-Cities League.

One of the initial proposals that was put on the table for discussion when talks of the 20-school conference surfaced was shifting the bottom two teams from each of the three leagues for football purposes each year based on the data, but no one was willing to vote on that this early into the process.

Marshall suggested that after two years of the new conference, the athletic directors review the data and simply reset the leagues. However, when it comes to Gahr athletics as a whole, the past three years of being in the Suburban Valley Conference has been a good fit. Of the major sports, Gahr has finished in second place in the Gateway League, or upper league five times and in third place another five times while earning an automatic playoff berth in the Mid-Cities League 14 out of 15 times.

“Oh yeah, without a doubt,” said Marshall of being in a good position as opposed to the SGVL. “A prime example would be tennis. Our boys tennis team wasn’t good [in the first two years of the Gateway League]. But the kids got better and made the playoffs [last fall]. It goes on and on.

“Like our boys basketball [program]; they were down a little bit and now they’re up,” he continued. “Our kids are happy with that. That’s perfect; [it gives you] hope. If you work, keep working to get back up. [The Suburban Valley Conference] has been the best thing ever.”

Marshall believes it will be better with the addition of the six schools from the 605 League and the four from the Del Rio League with El Rancho High opting to go somewhere else. Dominguez High also has decided to go elsewhere. Any given Gahr athletic team already face the schools from the 605 League and Del Rio League in non-league contests, making the 2026-2027 school year one big reunion party when it comes to league competition.

“We’ll play to our level, or the level we want,” said Marshall. “Some of our sports that had been struggling, like tennis…I don’t know if those kids would have kept playing if they were getting smashed every [time out]. I told [Cerritos athletic director] Todd [Denhart] he’s going to love it. But sometimes, you’re going to get behind the eight ball in the league. But you’re not stuck there forever.”

Marshall says it doesn’t matter which Gahr program will benefit or not benefit from the new 20-school conference because most of its teams are in the mid-tier, adding that Gahr probably won’t see a lot of them anyway. For example, baseball and softball most likely won’t play John Glenn High or Firebaugh High in league competition, or girls basketball may not see Lynwood High as much anymore if Lynwood is in the upper league all the time.

“I don’t think it will [matter] because we’re always going to play to our competition,” said Marshall.

While the original seven Suburban League schools will have a great chance of renewing old rivalries in many of the major sports, the same probably can’t be said for the original six SGVL schools. Gahr’s football and girls volleyball programs may not see Downey High for several years while the baseball and softball teams could wait before matching up with Lynwood or Paramount High.

In contrast, Gahr will be linked up with their current non-league opponents for league competition when it counts the most. Also, the Gladiators won’t be able to avoid playing Artesia High or Cerritos as much as they have in the past.

“I don’t know how much different that will be because I kind of think we’re where we are,” said Marshall. “As far as rivalries, obviously we’re going to have to play Artesia and Cerritos. We’re probably going to play the local schools more often in more sports. How about that? I think it’s going to be great because right now, people are picking and choosing if they want to play Gahr.”

Of the many hurdles that the athletic directors will face in the next 10-12 months, Marshall believes putting together the new league constitution will be the biggest. First you have to look at the constitutions of the 605 League and Del Rio League and see how they differ from each other and that of the Suburban Valley Conference. Then, the A.D.’s have to decide on how to modify the new constitution, i.e., what to take out or add.

“When we went into the Suburban Valley Conference, we got together the whole year before about how do you rotate [the scheduling and game] time starts, who plays where, how do you do your tiebreakers down to how many all-league [selections] do you get,” Marshall remembered. “But you have to do it. Plus, it gives each school input to how they want to…they’re just not going to take our [current] conference constitution.”

Unlike most other athletic directors, Marshall doesn’t believe transportation won’t be as big of an issue. He says schools will be using the same number of buses as they currently use and that schools aren’t playing more games; they’re playing different people.

“I think [the new conference] is going to be good for the have-nots,” said Marshall. “I never worry about the guys at the top; they’re going to get theirs and it’s going to work out for them. It’s not over until the ball gets kicked off. I think that’s going to happen up and down the whole conference. It’s going to be good.”