Montclair Prep Spared Sanction by Alpha League

The Alpha League has rejected a proposal to further penalize Montclair Prep’s athletic program in the wake of Southern Section penalties levied against the school last month for recruiting violations.

League administrators Monday scuttled a plan that would have precluded Montclair Prep’s athletic teams from winning Alpha League championships for the 1991-92 school year. League representatives would not release the vote count. The proposal would have created, in effect, a five-team league next school year because games involving the Mounties would not have counted in the league standings.

The Southern Section on April 25 placed Montclair Prep on three years’ probation and banned the Mounties from playoffs in all sports for the next school year and for three years in football. The sanctions came as part of an agreement between the Southern Section and Montclair Prep, which admitted to recruiting violations.

The vote represented a change in attitude among some league schools. Village Christian, for example, voted against the proposal despite previous statements by Mike Plaisance, the school’s athletic director and football coach, that the school favored sanctions against Montclair Prep.

“We as a staff sat down and decided that maybe we were going for the jugular,” Plaisance said. “Maybe it was going one step too far.”

Montclair Prep football Coach George Giannini said the league acted properly. “Now is the time to go forward and get rid of any hostilities,” he said.