Bishop Alemany High School of Mission Hills has been placed on probation for a year by the CIF-Southern Section for an advertisement that appeared in The Signal’s 2009 Santa Clarita Valley Football Preview.

If Alemany violates the probation, it will face a “harsh penalty or harsh sanction,” said CIF-SS director of communications Thom Simmons.

Simmons didn’t say what that penalty or sanction would be, as the CIF-SS handles those on a case-by-case basis.

The full-page advertisement appeared on the inside cover of the preview and contained a short write-up by Alemany which touted the presence of Santa Clarita Valley football players at the school.

“You can advertise a school, you can advertise a band program, but you can’t advertise to come to school because we have a great football team,” Simmons said. “The ad, the way it was written, talked about guys from Newhall, guys from Stevenson Ranch, guys from Saugus, it was a tacit implication that ‘It doesn’t matter where you live in the Santa Clarita Valley, come play football with us.’”

Messages left for Alemany Principal and Santa Clarita Mayor Frank Ferry via e-mail and phone Monday were not returned.