Mind Uncharted Explore. Discover. Learn.
If you’ve ever been confused by the various Conferences, Leagues, and Divisions that athletes at Coronado High School (CHS) compete in, you’re not alone. This is the place to unpack them all. There is a quiz at the end, so pay attention.
CIF – San Diego Section
Starting with the larger context, Coronado High School plays in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) – San Diego Section, one of ten sections in the state. CIF – San Diego covers most of San Diego and Imperial Counties — area 10 on the map, the southernmost section.
Conferences
Within the CIF – San Diego Section, there are eight conferences: City, Coastal, Frontier, Grossmont, Metro, North County, Southeastern, and Southern. Teams are loosely grouped geographically into conferences. Coronado High School plays in the City Conference. Below, see the map and key for a list and location of the schools in the City conference. Additionally, see this map for schools in every conference.
Leagues
Within the City Conference in which Coronado High School competes, there are four Leagues: Central, City, Eastern, and Western. Yes, there is both a conference and a league named “City.” League placements are not intuitive, so hang on.
CIF – San Diego tries to align teams that will be competitive within leagues, so Coronado plays in different leagues depending on the sport. For example, this year the Islander girls basketball team, football, and track & field compete in the Central League, but Islander softball, boys basketball, and boys soccer play in the City League. The other 15 Coronado High School teams are almost evenly split between the Eastern and Western Leagues.
Divisions
You’re doing great. In addition to conference and league placement, CIF – San Diego also places teams into Divisions.
Unlike conferences and leagues, division placement does not take geographic proximity into account, so teams from any one of the eight conferences may compete in the same division. At the end of regular-season play, CIF – San Diego hosts a tournament for every division in every sport.
Each sport determines divisions in one of two ways: by performance or by school size. For those sports that determine divisions based on performance, the highest-ranked teams are placed into Division 1, the next highest into Division 2, and so on. More on the two ways of placing teams later.
In addition, starting in 2013-14, the top-ranked teams in Division 1 have been selected as Open Division teams. These top-ranked teams play in a tournament separate from the CIF – San Diego Division 1 tournament.
