‘No interest’ from HRV for C. Oregon leagues

OSAA recently released three draft proposals designed to generate comments from the public and member schools.

The proposals include one six-classification model, one five-classification model and one model which would be six classifications for football and five classifications for every other sport.

Under the first two proposals, Hood River Valley would be placed in the Inter-Mountain Conference, where it played from 2002-06.

In the third model (Draft 3), the four schools in the Columbia River Conference — Hood River, Hermiston, The Dalles and Pendleton — would join Milwaukie, Putnam and Sandy in forming the Eastern division of a new “Pioneer League.”

The western division would be made up of Benson, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Roosevelt and Wilson.

In the six-classification proposal (Draft 1) with Hood River Valley in the IMC, the league would be at the 5A level with HRV joining the three other Columbia River Conference schools, and Bend, Mountain View, Redmond, Ridgeview and Summit.

In the five classification proposal (Draft 2) for all sports, the IMC would get a significant remodel with it becoming a 4A league made up of Crook County, HRV, Madras, Mountain View, Pendleton, Redmond, Ridgeview and The Dalles.

Hermiston would join the 5A East Portland Mount Hood Conference.

HRV Athletic Director Keith Bassham said that three proposals were designed to solicit comments and “stir the pot” more than anything else.

He also added that HRV “had no interest in Central Oregon” when it came to being in a league there.

In the last redistricting process HRV appeared to be ticketed for the 5A Northwest Oregon Conference. However in the closing weeks of the process, they suddenly found themselves in the Intermountain Conference with the Bend-area schools and Hermiston, Pendleton and The Dalles.

After all four schools voiced their displeasure with the move, they wound up together in the four-team Columbia River Conference.

Bassham said that Hood River Valley is again angling at a spot in the Northwest Oregon Conference which currently has nine schools.

He added that regardless of which league HRV winds up in, they would continue to schedule games against rival The Dalles-Wahtonka if TDW winds up in a different league.

In the coming months Bassham said the school would get direction from the school board on how they should proceed and move forward from there.

The OSAA classification committee is scheduled to meet again in January and is open to additional proposals.

A final classification proposal will be voted on next December. More information on the reclassification process is available at osaa.org/committees/classification.