OSAA realigns leagues.

Byline: Steve Mims The Register-Guard

PORTLAND - Four years ago, the Oregon School Activities Association created an uproar when it realigned high school sports leagues in a way that broke up traditional conferences and put some teams on long road trips to play faraway schools during the regular season.

Some school districts - including Eugene, Medford and Salem-Keizer, objected bitterly to the realignment because of travel costs and students' loss of class time.

On Monday, the OSAA created new hybrid leagues that bring local schools back together for regular-season games, a move that could save the Eugene School District $100,000 a year in travel costs.

The controversy started when the OSAA expanded high school competition from four enrollment classifications to six, breaking up the traditional Midwestern League in the process.

The new alignment mixes schools of different enrollment classifications that are geographically near one another, but splits the schools by enrollment for the postseason. It begins next school year and runs through spring 2014.

The Midwestern hybrid will consist of Class 6A schools South Eugene, Sheldon and Thurston along with 5A schools Willamette, Springfield, North Eugene, Churchill, Marshfield and Marist.

Thurston is being moved up to 6A because of increased enrollment. Marist asked to be moved up from the 4A Sky-Em League, which next school year will consist of Cottage Grove, Junction City, Elmira, La Pine, Sisters and Sweet Home, with Pleasant Hill dropping to the 3A PacWest Conference.

In separate meetings Monday, the OSAA executive board and delegate assembly approved the final recommendation of the classification and districting committee, which spent 14 months developing a plan that kept the six-classification system but added hybrid leagues around the state.

OSAA executive director Tom Welter said the hybrid idea came out of the objections expressed four years ago by some school districts, including those in Eugene, Medford, and Salem-Keizer, which all filed suit to try to stop the changes.

At that time, Sheldon and South Eugene were taken out of the Midwestern League and put in the Southwest Conference with schools in Medford, Roseburg and Grants Pass. The Salem schools were put in a league with Redmond.

"I think the whole concept of hybrids came out of issues created when we went to the six-classification system," Welter said. "We don't have enough schools at all classification levels in certain geographic areas, like Southern Oregon and Eugene. Consequently, this committee tried to look at how it can address loss of class time and cost of travel issues that were brought up by schools, and they came up with this concept.

"The concept is to play locally during the regular season, maybe play schools above and below you, and then the state championship committee will deal with how to qualify those teams for the playoffs."

Tim Carmichael, director of athletics for the Eugene School District and a member of the classification and districting committee, has estimated that the hybrid leagues could cut the district's travel costs by $100,000 per year with fewer trips to Southern Oregon.

Laurie Moses, district director of secondary education, said the hybrids could have an additional economic benefit because more fans are likely to show up for games pitting local schools against one another.

"The 4J district believes the decision made today is a good balance between competitive equity while realizing that loss of class time and student safety is of great importance to us, so we are pleased," Moses said. "We know there are challenges ahead as we craft our schedules, but we know the coaches and athletic directors share an interest in making this be successful."

The biggest question re-maining is how teams will qualify for the state playoffs; that will be determined by the OSAA state championship committee that began meeting this month.

South Lane School District superintendent Krista Parent is the chairwoman of the committee, which is scheduled to make a recommendation to the executive board in May regarding playoff qualifications for all leagues, with hybrids as the initial focus.

"The championship committee will have its hands full on this issue, but for what we were charged with. this was the best attempt to address those issues," classification and districting committee chairman John Harrington said.

"Four years ago this committee dealt with competitive balance when it moved from four classes to six. For ourselves, we took seriously the location issue of schools and specifically travel and implications on budgets and loss of class time. That has always been an issue through the years, but as we came up with the ultimate recommendation of six hybrid leagues, that was a driving factor in our deliberations."