CIF Exponent System – A Solution?

CIF is an acronym for California Interscholastic federation. It is essentially the governing body for interscholastic sport in the state of California. When I started coaching in 1969 the sports participation in the sports was based on what was called an exponent system. The first week of school each year all the boys (No girls sports then) were weighed and measured and their birthday as of that day was recorded. Those numbers were then entered in a formula that determined an exponent for that youngster. The exponents were A, B, C, and D. The bigger older kids were A’s and on down. There were A, B, and C teams so that kids were competing against boys of equal maturation level. They used to use it in football, but that had been abandoned by the time I started coaching. It continued to be used in basketball and track as I recall. We even had a CIF Southern Section championship for the B and C classification in track. It was abandoned in the early 1970’s. As I look back this was a good system. I cannot find my records on this. If there is anyone out there who has more information on this please drop me an email at gstscoach@gmail.com. I do know that the Los Angeles City schools kept using this system into the late 70’s. I think this is a good solution for keeping the late developer involved. There were many great athletes that were products of this system.