School District officials this week proposed that Sweet Home High School be returned to the Capital League to save the district travel time and highway hazards that they say students would be subjected to under the latest plan to redraw Oregon School Activities Association districts.
OSAA, which governs sports and other extracurricular high school activities throughout the state, is in the process of reworking its districts for the 2010-2014 time block.
The Classification and Redistricting Committee has been meeting since last fall and is on its sixth draft, in which Sweet Home has been placed in the Sky-Em League with Cottage Grove, Elmira, Junction City, La Pine and Sisters.
District officials have come up with their own plan that, Business Manager Kevin Strong said, they believe will work better for not only the Huskies but other schools. Sweet Home High School Athletic Director Dave Goetz traveled to Sun River Monday to present their proposal to the OSAA committee.
The Sweet Home proposal, entitled the 4A Safe Roads Proposal, would place the Huskies back in the Capital League with Cascade (Turner), Central (Independence), Estacada, North Marion, Philomath and Stayton. Sweet Home proposes that Sisters and LaPine be moved to the Skyline League with Henley, Klamath Union and Mazama, arguing that although travel distances for Sisters would be slightly increased, the road conditions in Eastern Oregon are generally far superior to the Cascade passes during winter.
“When the OSAA released its proposal that placed us in Sky-Em with LaPine and Sisters, we were concerned about safety, missed class time and additional travel expenses,” Strong said. He said that, in a six-team Sky-Em league, Sweet Home would need to cross the Cascades for 40 percent of its league away games.
“LaPine gets 20 inches of precipitation per year; Tombstone gets over 80 inches of precipitation per year,” Strong said. “That’s quite a bit of snowfall.”
Tombstone was downgraded last year to a D maintenance priority, meaning the likelihood of its being kept open to travel during stormy weather is lower than other routes.
“The important thing, and I think what a lot of people fail to take into consideration, is that when you’re heading west of Sisters you have to go over the Santiam Pass, which is maintained at a C level,” Strong said. “There are no additional passes on the way to Salem or Eugene. But if you go to Sweet Home, you have to deal with Tombstone, which has been downgraded to a D.”
The Huskies were last grouped with a team to the east when they were in the Capital Conference with Sisters in 2006. In the last redistricting, which took effect in the fall of 2006, the Huskies moved from the Capital to the Val-Co League, where they compete against Philomath, Newport, Taft and Central after Toledo was reassigned to a 3A classification at the last minute.
Though the competition has been balanced in most sports, Sweet Home coaches have complained about the disadvantages being in a five-team league while both the Sky-Em and Capital conferences have seven teams. The smaller league requires the Huskies to play other league teams three times in many sports and reduces the number of playoff spots available to member schools.
The Sweet Home proposal would reduce statewide 4A league travel by an estimated 7,440 miles per year and missed class time by 4,960 hours per year, district officials say. OSAA officials are seeking to ease a number of problems with the current classifications and districts, primarily the Eugene schools’ unhappiness over the extensive travel required by their grouping with southern Oregon schools.
OSAA has proposed hybrid leagues in Eugene other areas, such as central and southern Oregon and Portland, where schools of differing size classifications are in close proximity. The hybrid approach would allow those schools to compete against each other in a league but would allow the league to make a determination of which teams advance to post-season play and then assign teams to playoffs against schools in their size classification.
If OSAA buys into Sweet Home’s proposal, teams that stand to benefit greatly in reduced travel would include LaPine, South Umpqua and Siuslaw €“ more so, even, than Sweet Home, Strong said.
“Assuming we were to take Tombstone every time, we would benefit fourth-most,” he said.
“We think the Safe Roads Proposal gives OSAA lots of options,” he said. “OSAA has established three guiding criteria for making redistricting decisions: safety, loss of class time and cost.
“From a statewide perspective, I believe our proposal is superior to the (current) state propoal in all areas,” he said. “We’re cautiously optimistic.”