Scott Swanson
Sweet Home’s sports teams will almost certainly find themselves in a league with different faces in another year.
The only question will be whether the Huskies are one of the larger schools or the smallest.
It’s redistricting time again for the Oregon School Activities Association, the every-four-year exercise in which schools are grouped in leagues in an attempt to even the playing field by school size and location.
The OSAA Classification and Redistricting Committee began meeting last October and thus far has considered 10 official proposals, two of those applying to football only, and eight from individuals representing schools, a youth sports league and a Grants Pass newspaper sportswriter. Copies of all of those proposals are viewable at http://www.osaa.org/governance/committees (click the “Classification” button.
The most recent drafts being considered by committee members, who will next meet Feb. 27 in Wilsonville, include both a five-classification and a six-classification model, along with a proposal that would apply only to football.
The football-only proposal is based not just on enrollment but on teams’ recent performance on the field and participation numbers.
Committee members are a ttempting to even the playing field, particularly in football, which is the highest revenue-grossing sport for the OSAA.
The committee will continue to meet through the school year and will make a final recommendation to the OSAA Executive Board in October.
Problems with lack of competitive balance are most significant at both ends of the school-size spectrum – 1A and 6A. Last fall, South Eugene, which has about twice the student population of Sweet Home, forfeited a playoff game against Jesuit because the Axemen had 35 players on their varsity roster – 13 of them underclassmen, including two freshmen. Jesuit had 58 varsity players. South Eugene officials cited concerns over whether they could play the game without significant risk of injury.
That problem isn’t new; it is one of a number that committee members are seeking to address. The switch from four divisions to six in 2006 has hit many of the state’s larger schools particularly hard, leaving many no longer with familiar, neighborhood rivals and forcing them to travel three or four hours, as is the case with Eugene and southern Oregon schools, for league games.
At the other end, many small-school games are blow-outs. With student bodies sometimes numbering in the low double digits, one talented athlete can make a big difference.
The system has worked best for schools in the middle size range, though Sweet Home has been in three different leagues in the last 12 years.
The latest six-classification proposal would group Sweet Home in an Oregon West Conference with Junction City, Marist, Newport, Philomath, Stayton and Taft.
The latest five-classification model would put Sweet Home together with Central, Corvallis, Crescent Valley, Dallas, Lebanon and South Albany.
The football-only classification would put Sweet Home together with Cascade, Corvallis, Molalla, North Marion, Stayton and Woodburn in a combination of current 5A and 4A schools. The proposal is the result of an analysis that includes enrollment size, winning percentage over the past three years and the average number of participants. Schools below the classification’s average in each category were moved down one classification.
The five-division model would be a challenge for some Sweet Home sports programs, Athletic Director Steve Brown said.
“We’d get killed,” he said, bluntly. “They’re just bigger numbers. All those schools have over 1,000 kids. You give me an extra 400 kids, I’m going to find five or six athletes.”
Football Coach Dustin Nichol cited Sweet Home’s playoff game at Marshfield last fall as an example of how the number of athletes on the roster play a role in success in many sports.
Marshfield moved down to 4A from the 5A Division in 2014 because of declining student numbers, but still are listed at a student population of 682, compared to 639 for Sweet Home.
The Huskies, whose roster was comprised of 15 upperclassmen and 13 sophomores, trailed the hosts, who had some 60 players on their roster, 21-20 at halftime and 28-20 with three minutes left in the third quarter, before finally falling 62-26.
“We lost when we got tired,” Nichol said. “They had fresh bodies.”
“I think we have quality players that could keep up with 5A-type classification teams for the first half. But our three-way starters would run out of gas. They just have deeper benches. They only have two or three two-way starters. We have seven.
After being hit so many times during the game, he said, his multi-purpose players simply can’t maintain that level of play.
“When they stay fresh and we don’t, we’re in trouble.”
Not only that, but four of the five teams that would be grouped with Sweet Home in the current five-division model happen to be teams that went to the 5A playoffs last fall – and Lebanon won it all.
Nichol said he has fond memories of Sweet Home’s battles with Silverton and Dallas in particular, when those teams were more comparable, size-wise.
“I loved those rivalries, especially in basketball and volleyball,” he said. “I wish our numbers could keep up with them. We need 150, 200 kids more.”
Brown said another disadvantage for smaller schools like Sweet Home, compared to larger programs, is that athletes at Sweet Home often play three sports while those in larger school often specialize more. The drawback for the Huskies is less time in the weight room and other developmental activities, he said.
“If you’re out for basketball games twice a week, lifting weights during the season is kind of difficult,” he said. “Then your muscles get a little tired in games. You don’t bring your arm up high enough. That’s what you have an off-season for.”
Brown and Nichol acknowledged that including Marist in the mix, as proposed in the six-classification model, could pose a competitive problem for Sweet Home and other public schools. Otherwise, competing in a league against Philomath and Cascade and Stayton, as the Huskies have in the past, would be “awesome,” Brown said.
The Spartans moved up to the 5A Division in 2010 after winning multiple, regular state championships in a variety of sports, including football.
A school newsletter in 2009 noted that Marist had “‘owned” the 4A level (or corresponding classification used before the switch to 4A) for the Oregonian Cup, recognizing the best school athletics/academics programs at each level.
“‘Dominating’ isn’t even a fair description when we note that in the last 10 years, Marist has won the award seven times, was second two times, and was fourth the other time.
“This academic year, we are again in first place (through the completion of winter sports) by a margin significantly wider than that held by any other 1st place school. The ‘Coaches Association’ award given for athletics success (not including academics) at each level is equally, if not more, disparate.”
Against larger schools, though, the Spartans’ success has diminished, hence a request to return to the 4A level – or its equivalent.
Marist’s advantage is its location and the fact that it is not relegated to a certain geographic area, Brown said.
“It comes down to numbers,” he said “They have bigger numbers, a bigger pool to draw from. We only have so many people to draw from.”