Back to the drawing board.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Any good coach knows that the first draft of a game plan is rarely the last, and that it often takes several tries before a winning strategy emerges.

The Oregon School Activities Association's classification and redistricting committee prudently has decided to reject its first-draft proposal for the four-year period beginning with the 2010-11 school year.

That draft would have left the current six-classification system intact and expanded the number of teams in each league. In a large rural state with widely dispersed population centers, that approach would mean more, not less, travel for the already highway-weary high school athletes in the Eugene schools and other local districts.

For example, the discarded draft would have added Bend and Redmond high schools to the 6A Southwest Conference, which already includes Sheldon, South Eugene, North Medford, South Medford, Grants Pass and Roseburg high schools. It would have expanded the 5A Midwestern League, with Marist, Ashland, Crater and Eagle Point joining Churchill, North Eugene, Springfield, Thurston, Willamette and Marshfield.

As a long procession of speakers made clear to the committee at its Jan. 12 meeting, this draft would have imposed even-greater hardships on athletes, coaches, families and fans than the OSAA's poorly conceived 2006 realignment.

That six-classification plan put South Eugene and Sheldon in a league with Southern Oregon schools and put Salem-Keizer schools in a league with Redmond. The results have included the elimination of traditional crosstown rivalries, dramatic increases in travel time, higher costs and significant losses of classroom time.

Since eliminating the draft plan, the committee has generated three new proposals - one for six classifications with new enrollment cutoff points, one with six classifications, including hybrid leagues, and one with five classifications.

The six-classification plan with new enrollment cutoff points should join the first draft in the trash bin. It does little to reduce travel, adding Crater to the current Southwest Conference and adding Ashland, Eagle Point and Marist into the Midwestern League.

The other two proposals have some promise. Either separately or combined, they might provide a foundation for a viable reclassification plan.

The six-classification plan hybrid alignment includes four regional leagues that are intended to reduce travel for the schools in those regions. It would reinstate the former Midwestern League with Sheldon, South Eugene, Willamette, Thurston, Springfield, Churchill, Marshfield and North Eugene joined by Marist. The two largest schools in that grouping, Sheldon and South Eugene, would compete in the Midwestern League during the regular season but play against similar- sized 6A schools in the playoffs. The other Midwestern schools would complete in the 5A in the postseason.

This proposal would result in some competitive mismatches - for example, it would pit Marist, currently a 4A school that has petitioned to play up one classification, against much larger Sheldon and South Eugene. But it would restore the traditional rivalries of the Midwestern League and would significantly reduce travel times for Sheldon and South Eugene, which now travel to Southern Oregon for games.

The five-classification model would change the existing enrollment cutoff points and eliminate an entire classification. It would keep the existing Southwest Conference together as a 5A league, adding Thurston, Willamette, Springfield and Crater to the mix. The Midwestern League would be 4A and consist of Churchill, Marshfield, North Eugene, Marist, Cottage Grove, Lebanon, Summit and Sweet Home.

This proposal also has some flaws, including excessive travel for 5A teams, but a five-classification approach may ultimately give the committee the flexibility it needs to resolve that and other problems.

The committee has lots of work left before it comes up with an acceptable recommendation that can be submitted to the OSAA executive board by this fall's deadline. But its members deserve credit for demonstrating the flexibility, creativity and sensitivity to the concerns of OSAA member schools that are necessary to producing a workable realignment plan for Oregon's high schools.