ELK GROVE — The 2024 Sac-Joaquin Section Hall of Fame was announced Wednesday at the annual SJS media luncheon, and three local legends are among the inductees.

Manteca High graduates Steve Winter and Jack Thomson along with East Union product Ron Agostini are among nine who will be honored in Sacramento on Sunday, Oct. 20.

Winter, who is the long-time administrator of the SJS tennis playoffs, was a basketball, swimming and football coach at Manteca High before moving into administration. The old gym at Manteca High was named for his father Dr. Robert C. Winter.

Thomson returned to his alma mater to coach baseball before going across town to be the inaugural coach for Sierra High, also coaching football. The baseball field at Sierra bears the name Jack Thomson Stadium.

After being voted the student body president, Agostini was a member of the first Lancers graduating class in 1969 and went on to be a reporter for the Modesto Bee for decades and was known as the local golf guru. He is now a reporter for frontrowpreps.com.

Other items discussed during the annual media day:

• Major changes are on the horizon for girls sports. Last year, was the first season for girls flag football in the SJS section with 69 teams competing, which led to two 16-team brackets for the playoffs. The sport has exploded this year with 130 teams, and there will be four 16-team playoff brackets. In an effort to increase scoring, the number of flags per player will be reduced from three to two.

• At the SJS Board of Governors meeting in October, there will be a vote to determine if girls wrestling will have its own team duals section championship.

• Baseball, basketball and volleyball will be adopting playoff formats similar to football. For Divisions I-IV, the top three teams from each league will make the playoffs with balance of the 16-team brackets being filled by the Top 15 teams in the Calpreps/MaxPreps rankings. Divisions V-VII will have eight-team brackets populated the same way.

• The continued-success policy was discussed. Winning three SJS section titles in a row will elevate a team to the next division. Also, every year teams are submitted to the SJS Executive Committee with their alternative potentials for advancement while their identities are cloaked.  Purely based on accomplishment, if the Executive Committee believes the team should be advanced the teams’ identities are revealed and along with their records and statistics, they are advanced to the SJS Board of Governors for evaluation.

• The Dead Period for each sport – that time when coaches may have no contact with their players — used to be three weeks before, and three weeks after each sport. This year, the Dead Period for every sport was the first two weeks in July, and it was well-received by most. However, some area coaches who had summer showcases during that period had a problem with it.

• The SJS has a new adult expulsion policy, and it is strict. Each school has been issued a number of yellow and red cards, just like those in soccer. An unruly fan can be given a yellow card with a message on it,

  

  warning the fan to correct their behavior. Should the fan fail to comply, or if the fan’s initial behavior was egregious enough, the fan earns a red card and is ejected. That results in an additional three-game suspension and should another ejection occur, there will be a ban imposed for the rest of the season.