Compton High joined the Moore League in 1970, 13 years after the league was founded, and has been a stalwart ever since. Now, in a new era of CIF Southern Section competitive equity, Compton is departing the Moore League to form the Hub City League with their other city and district-mates: Dominguez High, Compton Centennial, and Compton Early College. The move is slated to happen for the 2026-27 school year, according to joint announcements by the Long Beach Unified School District (which administers the Moore League) and Compton Unified (which will administer the new Hub City League).
The two leagues will also function in “association,” a CIF-SS designation that will allow them to potentially move members between the leagues for different sports.
CIF-SS assistant commissioner Thom Simmons says that the move will not be approved by the CIF Southern Section until their council meetings next school year, as part of the releaguing process for the cycle beginning 2026-27.
It’s a seismic shift for high school sports in Long Beach and Compton. The Moore League, if it goes forward with six teams (Long Beach Poly, Wilson, Jordan, Millikan, Lakewood, and Cabrillo) will lose a guaranteed playoff spot by dropping from seven teams to six. According to the CIF-SS Blue Book rule 3514, leagues with five or six teams will get three automatic playoff entries as opposed to the four guaranteed playoff entries the Moore League has enjoyed since Cabrillo joined two decades ago, with seven teams.
The Hub City League, with four teams, will get an automatic two entries to the playoffs. So there will be a guarantee of two Compton teams in the playoffs instead of no guaranteed spots, while the Long Beach schools will get three spots, instead of usually getting four (since Compton High did not qualify for the playoffs out of the Moore League in many sports).
“We’re extremely excited for our kids in the district, I think this is one of the biggest things we have going on in our district,” said Chris Calvin, Compton Unified Coordinator of Interscholastic Sports.
Calvin had the yeoman’s task of pulling the Compton Unified schools from multiple CIF-SS “areas,” geographic groupings that allow teams to be in a league with other schools in those areas. The Compton schools had been scattered in different areas, preventing their grouping previously–by getting them together, Compton will go from no playoff appearances in many sports to likely at least two.
“Our district is on the rise with test scores, new facilities…we’re stronger than ever,” said Calvin. “Remaining in association with the powerful Moore League will really pay dividends. Playing in different leagues, we’ve found it to be extremely difficult for us to compete and make the playoffs, to experience winning the Compton way…Forming the Hub City League is going to give us a great opportunity to have at least two Compton schools in the playoffs in every sport, and that hasn’t happened in a long time.”
For many years, there wasn’t much of a point to getting into the playoffs for all but the first-place teams in most sports. But with the new competitive equity model placing teams from the same league in different playoff divisions, the Moore League schools have enjoyed a flourishing of success. Poly, Wilson, Lakewood, Jordan, and Compton have all made the CIF-SS championship in football over the last few years under the new model, historic feats for most of those schools. That’s what prompted Compton to think about how to take the Moore League’s guaranteed spots and think about a way to guarantee themselves success away from the powerhouses of the Moore League.
“We understand that once we make the playoffs we will have a fighting chance to start winning CIF championships again,” said Calvin. “It hasn’t been since the 70s where Compton had a perennial chance to win CIF championships. Dominguez (soccer) just got there and beat Wilson for Compton’s first CIF championship in many years. We’re excited about the opportunities to win league and CIF championships every year.”
Compton High’s football team, led by the well-respected Calvin Bryant, is a great example. They last won a Moore League football title in 1979, and have not often competed for it in the last two decades. But they got into the playoffs in 2021 and under the new CIF-SS playoff format, advanced to a CIF-SS championship for the first time in more than 30 years. Since then? They’ve gone 2-4, 1-5, and 0-6 in league, missing the playoffs and not being in contention for a league title. Now in the new Hub City League, they are virtually guaranteed a top-two finish and a guaranteed playoff berth, as well as a shot at a league title in what will be big games against Dominguez.
“Compton has a rich history in the Moore League, and leaving was hard,” said Calvin. “We had to think about the process and see what was best not just for Compton High, but all the schools in Compton. But we took a couple of things away from Long Beach. No matter what goes on, Long Beach will stick together. And we got it in our minds that this is an opportunity for us to be together and stay together. But also, by remaining in association, we will still have opportunities to be a part of the Moore League when the opportunity arises. So: Compton left. We hated to leave, we know the lineage and the popularity and how great the Moore League is, but we’re super excited.”
For the Moore League, the question turns to whether or not they’ll be able to add schools to allow them that fourth guaranteed playoff spot. New Moore League secretary Bill Salas is confident that the new structure will allow the league to remain relevant going forward.
“All of that is still in discussion,” he said. “Right now we are six (schools) and four (schools). Long Beach Unified and Compton–the association is coming together to have that dialogue of ‘what does it look like now, next year, and the year after?’”
The association between the Moore League and the new Hub City League will be called the SoCal Legacy Association, a fitting name for two historic cities in partnership. A “design team” consisting of a representative from each school as well as Salas and Calvin will spend next school year examining league membership, and what each sport’s makeup will be, since schools could potentially move back and forth on a sport-by-sport basis.
“There’s teams that are strong on both sides,” said Salas. “Who knows what happens in this relationship?”
While the details will be worked out over the next year–and the new leagues presumably approved by the CIF-SS next school year–it’s clear that big changes are coming for Compton and Long Beach high school sports.
