PNCLL Members,

After months of discussions and consideration of various alternatives, the following is my proposal for 2001 PNCLL play, to be discussed and voted on this Saturday in Seattle at the PNCLL Annual Meeting.

The issues which drove this are:

1. The need to structure an upper division which would better prepare our league champ to compete in St. Louis, with all the likely contenders THIS YEAR able to compete for that honor;

2. The desire to provide a less competitive division for the weaker teams to have fun playing lax among themselves without having to play the strongest teams;

3. The need to eliminate once-and-for-all our historic problem of forfeited games.

4. Make scheduling easier.

5. Reduce travel demands for the struggling teams.

6. Re-structure PNCLL playoffs to ensure that the best teams qualify.

While no system is perfect nor can make everybody happy, there is a consensus among the teams I've spoken with that this will work for this season. Please note that this would be for this year only, and we can and will realign again in 2002 based on 2001 results.

Anyway, here it is:

CONFERENCE I (W-L, Power Rating)
Simon Fraser (13-1, 98.52)
Washington State (8-3, 89.69)
Western Washington (8-5, 87.36)
Pacific Lutheran (8-4, 86.60)
Lewis & Clark (9-1, 86.20)
Whitman (5-6, 85.76)
Oregon (4-7, 82.71)
Washington (5-7, 81.49)
Montana* (n/a)

CONFERENCE II
Oregon State (3-7, 79.31)
Linfield (1-6, 74.74)
Gonzaga (0-9, 73.74)
Puget Sound (1-7, 73.72)
Willamette* (n/a)

* Montana & Willamette will be coming to the meeting to seek admittance to the league, which the Executive Board will recommend to the league to vote "yes" on. New members must, by PNCLL By-Laws, serve a year as Probationary New Members which means no vote on issues at the meeting and no post-season qualification. If these teams fulfill their comitments in '01, they would be elevated to Full Member status for 2002.

REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE

Conference I - Members play each other ONCE, home OR away, for eight games counting toward playoffs.

Conference II - Members play each other TWICE, home AND away, for eight games counting toward playoffs.

Inter-conference games would be encouraged to continue geographic and/or historic rivalries, but teams could choose to play only their eight conference games as a their complete schedule.

PLAYOFFS

CONFERENCE I -- Nine teams, six make playoffs.
#1 and #2 get seeded directly into the semi-finals. A two-game, quarter-final round would be played over the weekend of April 20-22 (the week BEFORE our Tourney) with

#6 at #3 (winner to semis versus #2)
#5 at #4 (winner to semis versus #1)

CONFERENCE II -- Five teams, two make playoffs.
#1 and #2 would play in the Conference II Finals.

MISCELLANEOUS

Conference I teams will be expected to meet PNCLL guidelines for play WITHOUT EXCEPTION, and will also be encouraged to schedule non-league games both in or out of the Pacific Northwest. Conference I teams should further commit that they will travel to St. Louis to represent the PNCLL if they win the crown

Conference II teams will be "cut some slack" on the guidelines if necessary -- may play without a real coach, or without perfectly matching uniforms, to name two possible exceptions

Other proposals for a seven/seven split; a college/university divisional split or a geographic conferencing were rejected, after discussion, for failing to mitigate all the 7 items listed at the top of this.

I'm sending this out now, so we can hopefully not spend too much time debating this on Saturday. Any member team who has a problem with this proposal should contact me immediately, to see if we can address those concerns before the meeting.

Thanks for your consideration of this.

Wish