Leaders of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association met late last month to begin discussing the idea, which would take the 28 football-playing schools from the leagues and then divide them into three divisions, similar to the way the MIAA is currently structured. The soonest that could take place would be the fall of 2011.

The idea has considerable support, but commissioners of both leagues urged caution, noting talks are in the preliminary stages.

"We had one lunch, I have not talked to our [school] principals yet," the WCAC's Jim Leary said.In recent years there has been concern about the competitive balance of WCAC football. Advocates for change point to the league dominance of DeMatha and Good Counsel, which have met in the past six title games. Two other alternatives that have been discussed are the Virginia members of the WCAC -- Paul VI, Ireton and O'Connell -- being part of the creation of a Virginia Catholic league; and the splitting of the WCAC into two divisions, one comprised of stronger teams, one less competitive.

"It's a very competitive league; for some of the smaller schools that's tough," Paul VI Athletic Director Pete Menke said. "By expanding the league and doing some divisional-type activities you would be able to bring in some of the teams that aren't as strong."

"We've tried that and I would have no trouble with that," O'Connell Athletic Director Darrell Snyder said. The most significant change, though, would be a merged WCAC-MIAA, which would seem to satisfy those schools who are unable to compete with DeMatha and Good Counsel on an annual basis.

Both leagues are looking to become more balanced. With only six teams in its 'A' Conference, the MIAA's top teams annually struggle to fill out their schedules. Not counting 2002, when the WCAC altered its postseason due to a shortened schedule (as a result of the D.C. area sniper attacks), three of the WCAC's eight teams failed to make the playoffs this entire decade.

"I'd love to see something happen," MIAA Commissioner Rick Diggs said. "I think it would be outstanding.

"We just presented this to our executive committee [recently] and discussed it briefly. We'll probably have much more discussion at our summer workshop."

Said a DeMatha administrator who was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly, "It has a chance, it would be a great thing. We've definitely been driving this. It seems ridiculous that we play Good Counsel every year for the championship. The league becomes a league of haves and have-nots. . . . It's really not healthy for the same teams to be playing each other every year."

The WCAC's athletic directors discussed expansion at their regular meeting last week. Bishop McNamara Principal Marco Clark has been named chairman of the league's recently formed expansion committee.

"The local region today is not as far as it once was, even our conference goes from Olney to Fairfax to St. Mary's County," Clark said. "We'd love to explore either inviting some other schools to be part of our conference or even the possibility of pairing up with another conference just to add the possibility of more competition."

There are many issues to be resolved, but Leary provided the MIAA with a copy of the WCAC's bylaws and said he is waiting to receive a copy of the MIAA bylaws so that the leagues could figure out if there were any differences that needed to be reconciled. The most pressing might be that the MIAA allows its members to give athletic scholarships and the WCAC does not.

In Virginia, officials from Ireton, Paul VI, O'Connell and Pope John Paul the Great are waiting to meet with Arlington Diocese officials about the possibility of splintering off and joining a Virginia Catholic league. The idea was brought up by John Fogarty, athletic director at Richmond's Benedictine High. A meeting originally scheduled for Jan. 8 was postponed because of a snowstorm.

"For years there always has been a concern they might" leave, Clark said. "My personal concern is if schools feel an inability to compete athletically, they may begin withdrawing from the conference and then we don't have a league. I'd like to make it more enticing for St. Mary's Ryken and Bishop Ireton [which currently compete as football independents] to join the conference, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. I'd like to focus on some solutions that would keep us together and provide us with more and new opportunities."