Breaking News Tuesday afternoon: Los Altos-Colony championship will be at Cerritos College on Saturday night.
Statement from CIF: “There’s a feeling and a belief, and from the experience of the people in this office and the people who are involved from Colony High School and to a certain extent Los Altos High School, they feel that facility does not fit the crowd needs for that particular game and does not fit the field conditions that would be necessary for a CIF-Southern Section championship game,” CIF spokesperson Thom Simmons said Tuesday afternoon.

Los Altos coach Dale Ziola following decision: “The playing surface shouldn’t really matter. Two of our three playoff games, we had to go and play on the road on artificial turf despite practicing on a natural grass surface. Now, it’s our home game, so why should it have to be different the other way around?”

Los Altos Athletic director Andrew Formano on CIF statement: We were absolutely prepared to host the game here at Los Altos and were prepared to bring in more seating if that was needed but we thought we had more than adequate seating. We’ve sold 7,000 tickets for graduation before. We’ve hosted big football games and didn’t think that was an issue at all. We have one of the biggest stadiums in the San Gabriel Valley, certainly bigger than some high schools that were approved to host championship games in the past. We never thought seating was an issue.
Formano on Los Altos’ field issues: Our field is our field, we use it every week for practice, for games, for playoff games. We thought it was suitable compared to what CIF has approved in the past.”
Formano On moving the game to Cerritos: It was one of the only choices left. We tried Mt. SAC, Citrus and Cal State Fullerton, but they all were unavailable for (different) reasons. We didn’t look at a nearby high school because we felt our high school was the most suitable. Eventually we chose Cerritos College because of the stadium capacity and there weren’t many other choices at that point.”

Photos from today’s CIF-SS Champions Luncheon in Long Beach

Teams not in CIF-SS championships at Angel Stadium are allowed to host CIF-SS football championships at home if they won the coin flip, are the designated home team and can prove to CIF it can accommodate a championship crowd for both teams and has an adequate enough surface to host it. We’ve seen it happen recently with Monrovia and San Dimas hosting championships and many other schools in the Southern Section. Los Altos has the home game in Saturday’s Central Division championship against Colony, but there is a push by Colony to move the game from Los Altos which CIF is strongly considering. It is believed Los Altos can handle the crowd, the issue is its field. Is it worthy enough to hold a championship game? Consider this: When West Covina played La Serna in the 2011 championship, West Covina argued days in advance that the game shouldn’t be at California High School, where La Serna normally plays home games. It argued the grass surface was dead and not adequate enough, nor did Cal Hi have press boxes for coaches, media or TV media outlets broadcasting the game on live stream. Back then I argued the game should be moved for those reasons too, that championships deserved marquee venues whenever possible and ideal playing surfaces. CIF sided with La Serna after visiting California High on the Wednesday before the game, determining that Cal Hi had enough seating capacity and that the dead grass was not an issue, allowing the game to be played there. There is no difference between that situation vs. Los Altos’ right to host a game on Saturday at its venue. Los Altos’ grass field is no different than the Cal Hi field, plus it has more than enough seating on both sides to stage a championship, plus it has two press boxes for coaches, media and broadcast media. If you’re going to say yes to Cal Hi, you need to say yes to Los Altos because a precedent already has been set. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, I’m hearing the game could get moved to nearby Walnut High, Mt. SAC or possibly Fullerton. But if you ask me, if CIF is going to allow a game at Cal High, then to force Los Altos to move would mean making its own rules as it goes along. Stay tuned, there is sure to be more on this.

@SGVNSports.CIF risks an appearance of "nepotism" as they've used Colony HS for a Championship Basketball venue. #Favoritism? #GoodOleBoys?

— Joe Amat (@JoeAmat) December 2, 2014

CIF approved this field at California High in 2011 for the La Serna, West Covina championship game. Even Los Altos’ field, which is the worst in the SGV, isn’t like this … That’s why I said, If CIF approved Cal Hi, how can you NOW say no to Los Altos. It comes down to this, if your field is playable enough to host playoff games, then you can’t argue the surface isn’t capable now, especially looking at the Cal Hi pictures. The only question should be weather Los Altos can handle the crowd, which it obviously can. Los Altos is one of the larger stadiums with huge bleachers on each side. This should be a no brainer.

Also, in CIF’s football playoff handbook, the only criteria it mentions is crowd size, which Los altos has covered.

More precedent for Los Altos’ argument is Rio Hondo Prep getting a home game in 2012 against Mission Prep. Not only was the field in terrible shape, the visiting sidelines force players to stand on a hill.