GRANADA HILLS — CIF LA City Section commissioner Vicky Lagos sat at her boardroom during a relatively light day at her organization’s office building in Granada Hills.
Time is precious for Lagos, who is usually brainstorming and solving the answers to questions parents, coaches, teachers and administrators might have when she isn’t organizing a City Section event.
As commissioner, she oversees a body of 156 public high schools around Los Angeles with non-chartered schools affiliated within the realm of LAUSD interscholastic athletics headed by David Siedelman.
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Together the two entities work in cohesion to make sure sports are running smoothly throughout the city of Los Angeles.
“The misnomer is that we just sit here and make decisions and do what we want to do,” Lagos said. “But the reality is that we are a self-governing organization. There’s a process to make any change. The rules are the rules schools have made. Like the transfer rules. Those are the rules that schools have made and those are the things people don’t quite understand. They just think we are horrible people making these decisions when we are doing what’s fair.”
What’s the future of the City Section and what did Lagos share? From transfer rules to NIL benefits, playoff venue planning and how the quality of student-athletes can improve, it’s time to learn more about the inner workings of the City Section.
What are the current transfer rules for CIF?
Students can transfer only once without a valid change of address before the 10th grade, according to CIF Bylaw 510. After the first semester of a sophomore year, athletes have to sit out 50% of their sports’ calendar days.
“Some transfers are inevitable,” Lagos said. “Sometimes you go to a school and it’s not a fit for that student. And that’s why we have that sit out period. So you have that opportunity.”
So why can some students transfer and be eligible after their sophomore year?
Bylaw 206C grants any athlete full eligibility based on a full residency change. The process of Bylaw 206C is then verified fully by the receiving school and is later confirmed through paperwork filed to CIF State.
Residency proof is shown through property tax receipts, bank account statements, credit card statements, according to CIF State documents.
A section commissioner and school can also request the following documents to prove a permanent residency change and confirm eligibility:
- real estate documents indicating and verifying a change of residence,
- court documents indicating a change of residence, declaration of residency executed by the student’s parents, guardians or caregivers, operative telephone and utility service at the student’s new residence and terminated at the former residence, utility service receipts, proof of paying for utilities at the new residence including phone, gas, electricity, water, cable television, and garbage collection,
- proof of submitting a change of address to the U.S. Postal Service to receive mail at the new residence,
- proof of transfer of the parent and/or guardian and age-appropriate student’s motor vehicle registration,
- proof of changed address on a parent, guardian or caregiver’ and age-appropriate student driver’s license,
- voter registration listing the new address
- Proof of entering a long-term lease.
There’s often confusion between the two definitions that carry straight through CIF State back to both CIF LA City Section for Lagos and CIF Southern Section commissioner Mike West.
“We want to help these kids become eligible,” Lagos said. “But it’s the proper eligibility and making sure not only for them but when you transfer, you’re possibly taking someone else’s spot that did have it last year.”
Lagos also warned about potential promises made by coaches once a student transfers to another school.
“We get a lot of kids who have transferred and maybe coming back because something was said and it didn’t come to fruition,” Lagos said. “The kid is the one in a bad situation. Sometime adult decisions aren’t always in the best interest of the kid.”
How is NIL impacting the future of CIF sports?
CIF has been at the forefront of overseeing how amateur athletes are paid because of ties in the film and television industry. Bylaw 212.4, ratified in May 2004, allows athletes can participate in commercials as long as there’s no mention to a school team or affiliation and applies to the film industry as long as a person isn’t displaying school colors or logos during a television episode or film.
Xolo Maridueña, who has starred in “Blue Beetle” and “Cobra Kai,” is reported to have played tennis during his acting career at Cathedral High. Kurt Russell played baseball at Thousand Oaks High through his child stardom.
So what about name, image and likeness? Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Fair Pay To Play Act in 2019, a landmark law that allows athletes to make money as athletes. They can and and always have, according to CIF.
The rules are broken though if an athlete receives benefits using a school logo and cannot receive benefits for CIF postseason accomplishments.
Expansion and growth in flag football and sand volleyball
Flag football and sand volleyball participation skyrocketed in 2025-26 both nationally and in the City Section.
The number of college teams in both sports expanded. Sand volleyball saw a 50% increase from 143 programs to 214 college teams with 3,800 players nationally.
The City Section now has more flag football teams (91) than tackle football teams (71) while more than 400 college programs exist at the varsity and club level.
Flag football is expected to have junior varsity teams in the coming seasons after 56 teams competed in the City Section playoffs across four different divisions.
Inaugural City Section flag football playoffs took place in 2023.
“The Rams and the Chargers have been great partners in adding resources to our coaches,” Lagos said. “They have clinics for the coaches and for players to come play in as well. It’s been an exciting time and to see it start to grow, I wish I had gotten to play when I was a high school athlete.”
Will City Section see the addition of more athletic trainers?
California is far behind when it comes to advancements in athletic training, according to the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut.
The nonprofit organization publishes the State High School Sports Safety Policies, a yearly study that ranks states based on the ability to use best practices to help prevent and/or treat head injuries, prevent heat stroke, have protocols in case of medical emergencies and providing high schoolers with healthcare coverage.
California ranks 35th out of 50 states, according to the 2024-25 study conducted by The Korey Stringer Institute.
Lagos hopes to see the quality and accessibility for athletic trainers improve, which depends on the state of California passing laws that provided funding and proper certifications that are eventually instituted at the state level by CIF.
Newsom signed AB 796 in September 2024 establishing athletic training as a healthcare profession, but the law won’t go into effect until 2028. Getting treatment remains an issue. The Journal of Athletic Training reported that 43% of high school athletes still don’t have access to certified athletic trainers.
LAUSD Athletic Training coordinator Kirsten Farrell has been working with City Section to improve training standards.
“It’s all about resources,” Lagos said. “(Farrell) has done a great job for us. Would we support having more athletic trainers? We support it 100%.”
Improving the establishment of CIF championship venues
City Section had to improvise late in 2026 after multiple venues set to host the softball championships fell through at the last minute while baseball played two games at Dodger Stadium.
“One of our biggest challenges is venues and we try to get the best venues within our geographical footprint or very close,” Lagos said.
CSUN, which hosted the previous season’s tournament, was under construction and community college venues weren’t available. Lagos explained community colleges can be a challenge to book because of pricing issues. Lagos and her team no choice but to find a neutral host.
That neutral host was Legacy in South Gate, which hosted the Open Division final between Granada Hills and Carson and the Division III title game between South East and Reseda. Granada Hills and Reseda each traveled from the San Fernando Valley and took more than two hours due to afternoon rush-hour traffic. South East had a five-minute trip while Carson made its game in 20 minutes.
Whether the lengthy commutes were a factor or not, both Valley teams lost via mercy rules. Granada Hills fell 12-1 and Reseda lost 12-2 – a trend in which four of the five section softball championships were decided by 10 runs or more.
“We have to make sure we are not pricing ourselves out to give all of our sports a fair opportunity at different venues,” Lagos said.
Lagos believes having agreed-upon and honored contracts with host venues could reduce the stress and lessen the organizational improvisation her team goes through seasonally to host City Section championship events.
Lagos’ biggest wish for City Section?
For Lagos, the answer is simple: more resources for athletic directors.
Lagos shared that many athletic directors in her section are often teachers who take on the role of instructing students and then doing the full administrative labor required to help teams cycle through their schedules.
There’s a difference, Lagos explained, between schools with full-time athletic directors whose main focus is sports compared with athletic directors that also teach several classes in a single day.
“The schools that have full-time athletic directors have time to supervise and have time to get all their paperwork in,” Lagos said. “It’s not a constant fight against the clock and their lives are better for it as well. If I had a wish, it would be more resources and more time for the athletic directors.”