O’Connell football exits Washington Catholic Athletic Conference
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Version 0 of 1. O’Connell has withdrawn its football team from competition in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and, beginning next fall, will play an independent schedule while remaining a member of the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association. Citing a devotion to the Arlington private school’s mission as well as a desire to place its student-athletes in “the best circumstances to be competitive,” O’Connell Head of School Joseph Vorbach informed the WCAC and football team of the decision last week. “This was a difficult decision that was closely evaluated from all angles, using our mission statement first to determine where does football properly reside in the overall picture of the school,” Vorbach said in a Wednesday phone interview. “For now, the best thing for us as a school and for our student-athletes is to assemble an independent football schedule.” As a full member of the WCAC since its inception in 1993, O’Connell was the conference’s lone remaining Virginia diocesan school to compete in football. Bishop Ireton and Paul VI’s football teams previously left the conference to compete as independents. This past fall, which marked Colin Disch’s first season at the helm, O’Connell went 1-9 overall and 0-7 in the WCAC. In each of the three previous years under Del Smith, the Knights went 5-5 but never won more than two conference games. The last time O’Connell compiled a winning record was 2008, when it was 6-4, and more than a decade has passed since the Knights qualified for the four-team WCAC playoffs. While Vorbach said the team’s record this season was not a factor in the decision, he did confirm that safety was considered in light of the heightened awareness surrounding head injuries on the football field. “We certainly value our relationships in the league. But if you’re looking at the whole program and our mission to develop the mind, body and spirit of our student-athletes, we can’t ignore the broader trends in football that include issues with concussions,” Vorbach said. “In looking at football as an intense, contact sport that requires size and numbers, that was a piece of our overall decision. It was not an overriding factor, but it’s also not an irrelevant one.” O’Connell is a co-educational school with about 1,100 students, according to Vorbach. Of the approximately 550 boys who make up the student body, 51 participated on this fall’s varsity football team. Players and their parents were alerted of the news last week in separate meetings that Vorbach characterized as “healthy.” While the nucleus of O’Connell’s team will graduate in the spring, including North Carolina offensive line recruit Jay Jay McCargo, for those remaining players with college football aspirations, the news was jarring. “I’m very disappointed and surprised,” said DeJuan Ellis Sr., whose son DeJuan Jr. started at quarterback as a sophomore this season. The move means that O’Connell will be eligible to compete in the VISAA Division I football playoffs. Meanwhile, O’Connell’s other sports still will compete in the 12-member WCAC, which now features seven football teams following O’Connell’s departure and the addition of St. Mary’s Ryken before this past season. “We have a lot of shared interests and common values with teams in the WCAC, so we would definitely not close the door permanently to any future possibilities for football competition,” Vorbach said. “But while we want our student-athletes to be in a competitive set of circumstances, when looking at the mission of our school, we had to evaluate how to find the right balance. For us, at this time, that means competing as an independent football team.” |