Rob Wigod leads CIF Southern Section toward the future in final year as commissioner

Commissioner Rod Wigod will retire at the end of the next school year. (Photo: OC Sports Zone, Tim Burt).

Like any year, CIF Southern Section Commissioner Rob Wigod has a lot on his plate, among them: the second year of a new football playoff system, a focus on sportsmanship for fans, an officials shortage, a proposal for a new girls sport and securing a venue for the baseball and basketball finals.

There’s something special though about this year.

Wigod has already announced plans to retire at the end of the school year. He’s been at the position for the last 11 years and previously served as assistant commissioner.

Wigod, 63, will officially retire Aug. 1, 2023.

“I felt as my 40th year in education was coming up and certainly getting through some of the more challenging times we ever had, I felt this might be a good time to kind of finish the job,” Wigod said Wednesday. “We still have one more year to go and I think it seemed like the right time after all that we’ve been through and kind of feeling that we re-established and re-energized everyone with high school sports again that this would be a good time to do it one more year.”

Wigod said he doesn’t have a “master plan” of what he will do after he retires.

“I do know I want to continue to give back, I want to continue to be involved in helping young people and probably specifically high school sports,” said Wigod, who played baseball and football at Long Beach Wilson.

Wigod began coaching football at Wilson in 1979 when he was a student at Long Beach State, earning his bachelor’s degree and teaching credential. He started coaching football and baseball at Lakewood in 1983, coached there for 14 years and was boys athletic director for 10 years.

Wigod then went to Los Alamitos in 1998 as baseball coach and athletic director for two years. Wigod was hired as assistant CIF commissioner in 2000.

Wigod said he takes pride in a number of accomplishments during his tenure with the CIF.

“I think of things like social media, we never had any social media presence at all when I became commissioner,” he said. “And I want to credit assistant commissioner Thom Simmons. I think our very first conversation when I became commissioner was, ‘let’s start a social media program’ and I think we have a very active and robust social media program now and it’s been a big help to getting the word out and the message out.

“I’m very proud of the competitive equity playoff system we’ve adopted. We’ve seen many schools get opportunities they never had before. I think it’s done a lot for competition and making it more fair and grouping schools together that should be playing each other.

“We’ve established girls wrestling, same as the boys now. We have traditional competitive cheer that we didn’t have, we have girls beach volleyball that’s coming this year as a championship sport for the first time, we had girls lacrosse had first championships at central sites last year, boys too and next up is girls flag football which is being voted on next month by our section.

“Financially, we’ve made some great strides financially being able to support our schools. We’ve rebated membership dues for last school year to them and we have forgiven this year’s membership dues for 2022-23. That’s about $1.5 million in savings for our member schools. Thom reminded me it’s the third time we’ve done this in the 11 years I’ve been here.

“Our 100th anniversary was a highlight. It was a while ago, but to be the commissioner in charge of the celebration of our 100 years was kind of an honor to be able to be part of that.”

It figures to be another busy year, but with COVID restrictions lessened and life getting somewhat back to normal, Wigod can focus on running the business of the CIF like he did before the pandemic.

“I’m very excited for the coming year; I really feel we had a tremendous year last year, to be able to have had all of our sports return, section, regular season, regional, state championships, he said. “Every single thing that had been lost has hopefully been restored through last year. I look to this year to just continue to build on that.”

Wigod answered questions from OC Sports Zone on other subjects:

Football playoffs

The CIF playoff system for football, instituted at the end of the regular season grouping teams in divisions, will again be used.

“We had our first year with it last year, it took a little while to get there because of the shutdown,” Wigod said. “I think we were very pleased with the first year and we’re going to go forward this coming year with building upon that and improving on that. These are also rules we’re following. It isn’t something I would be able to go and change without going to our council and having approval for any significant changes. But we certainly are looking to see another year of the system going forward with the most accurate way we can form divisions for football. I don’t believe there is a more accurate way than the way we’re doing it.”

Wigod said reaction was “pretty good” to the system.

“I think we saw some great competition. We saw some schools that had opportunities like they had not had in the past or thought that maybe earlier in the season things weren’t going very well, some of them found a way to right the ship and just getting in the playoffs gave them an opportunity. In your area, for example, take Newport Harbor High School. There probably weren’t designs on them coming through the championships and getting all the way until the end, and there they were, when it was all said and done, they were standing with a plaque.

“There were a lot of different stories like that throughout our section.”

Fan sportsmanship

“We are concerned and there is an aspect of returning to play that was great to see,” Wigod said. “More and more fans came out, more and more people came out because they missed high school sports and they missed what it was and they took it for granted perhaps before it was shut down. I was expecting to see people with maybe a heightened appreciation of high school sports but there was an aspect also where some people had pent-up frustrations and built up angers and built up feelings while they were not allowed to go out and watch and not allowed to go out and participate. That showed itself at times.

“We’re really trying to make a strong point of emphasis that we have to do better with fan behavior, we’ve got to do better with supervision of students, students sections, parents. We really have to get our schools to make their campuses a welcome place for officials, which is another issue we’re seeing that’s critical to our success, is trying to make sure we have enough officials.

“The numbers are all indicating that the primary reason we lose officials is because of the way they’re treated. State-wide, we’re going to have a huge emphasis with the CIF up and down our state to really focus on spectator fan behavior and student behavior and let those who are out performing enjoy performing without any of the negative aspects of what sports can bring if people aren’t behaving appropriately.”

Football officials

“A few of our areas have reported some increases, they have some numbers trending upward,” Wigod said. “That’s not necessarily the case across the board in all sports or across the entire section. That’s an on-going effort and everyone has a role to play.

“I hope that people are recognizing that the officials who are working are working more and more games, some working five or six days a week because of all the changes of game schedules. We are at a shortage but we still have people who are working and they need to be supported and recognized and appreciated because they’re working even more than they ever used trying to make sure we can fill these gaps.”

Girls flag football

The CIF Southern Section council will consider a proposal next month to start girls flag football starting in the fall 2023-24 season.

“I think there’s strong support for it,” Wigod said. “There were discussions about the season of sport that would be more appropriate for it. The original proposal was considering it as a spring sport. Our schools thought in examining all the different spring sports going on they felt the fall was a better season of sport for it. I’ve heard pretty much positive comments …. so it will be interesting next month to see how the vote comes out. And then it has to go on to the state federated council after us.”

If approved by the CIF council, it would be up to individual schools to determine which nights the games woule be played. One option would be to have the games played on the same night as the varsity boys football games, Wigod said.

“We would need 20 percent of our member schools to field teams in girls flag football and when we reach that threshold, we would be able to conduct a Southern Section championship in that sport,” Wigod said

Baseball finals

Wigod was pleased with how the CIF baseball finals were run last season at Cal State Fullerton. Among the games was the exciting game between Estancia and Anaheim in the Division 6 final.

“That set the tone for the competition that day,” he said. “We were really lucky. Cal State Fullerton is a very good partner with us. They were glad to have us there and it’s a great venue. There were some pretty good baseball games played there this year.”

Locations for next year’s finals will be determined later.

“We will take a look at the Major League schedule and see if there are any opportunities that might present themselves if we’re able to try and get to a Major League ballpark,” Wigod said. “We want to try our best to try and provide championship venues in the best championship venues we can. If we don’t go to a Major League stadium, it doesn’t mean we don’t have a great championship venue. We’re always looking to improve and do what we do and we’re open to different scenarios. We will see what plays out.

“Obviously, the financials have to work. They have to have a desire to have us, which in reality hasn’t always been the case.”

Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium have had CIF finals in past years.

Rose Bowl football

CIF officials announced earlier the Division 1 championship game will be at the Rose Bowl on Friday, Nov. 25.

“It will be the first time since 1944,” Wigod said. “We’re excited to be part of the Rose Bowl’s 100th year anniversary celebration and we feel like that was kind of a natural thing to do with the new California high school football Hall of Fame, the class that was just announced this week. They’re building an absolutely beautiful space at the Rose Bowl to house the California high school football Hall of Fame and that should be opening in November, the week of our championship and we thought this was a great way to be part of that celebration and that iconic venue and give a great opportunity for those who love high school football to come and enjoy a top-notch, high quality football game at a venue like the Rose Bowl.”

Other division finals will be held at local sites, either high schools or community college stadiums, Wigod said.

Basketball finals

Wigod wouldn’t say where the CIF basketball finals will be held, but indicated the CIF will return to the format of having them all at one site. During the pandemic, finals were held at host high school sites.

“We’re in active discussions with a major venue and we’re very close to finalizing,” Wigod said. “So we will be ready to hopefully get that finalized so I don’t really want to go too far in front until it’s done. We will of course announce that when it’s finalized. Hopefully we will have that news for folks, not too far from now.”

Wigod was asked if the venue is in Orange County.

“I’ll just say a major venue, how’s that? I think people will be excited.”

Message to athletes

“Celebrate this great opportunity, embrace what education-based athletics is, being with your teammates, your friends, your classmates and the student body,” Wigod said. “Just try and put all that has been challenging behind us and really focus on what’s in front of us, and that’s the great thing high school athletics is, what it does for all the stakeholders and here we go …. We’re gearing up for zero week this Thursday and Friday and it’s really great to be able to look forward to what’s to come and feel like some of the real difficult things are behind us now and it’s all good going forward.”

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com