Football: Oops, I was joking, says Jim Crichlow

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The commissioner of the Central Section, Jim Crichlow, after telling the Fresno Bee on Sunday that he had ‘put a little pressure on my fellow commissioners’ to get Fresno Washington Union selected over Lompoc for the CIF state championship Division III bowl game, now has told the newspaper that he was joking.

The clarification came from Crichlow on Monday: ‘This is being construed as I put additional pressure on them. I jokingly mentioned that, but had no intention of actually putting pressure on them. I shouldn’t have been discussing it at all, but elected to make a couple comments.’

This is precisely why the media should be in the meetings to make sure everything is done fairly and appropriately. For an organization that tells people it wants to be transparent, it’s embarrassing that the commissioners can’t talk about what happens behind a closed door. And now that one commissioner has talked about specifics, it raises questions about the politics involved, deal-making and everything else you can think of.

-- Eric Sondheimer