Rogue Valley High Schools react to new schedule from OSAA

MEDFORD, Ore. — New rules announced this week say there will be no high school sports in Oregon at least for this year.

“I think there’s hope I think the biggest thing is are we gonna be back in school and will kids be able to participate,” Crater High School Athletic Director, David Heard said.

The Oregon School Activities Association or OSAA announced the decision to postpone high school sports until 2021 Wednesday. High school sports seasons will now be played from January to June with shortened seasons to give everyone a chance to play.

“I actually like the fact that I know what we’re looking at, at least now we have some guidelines from the state and governor of metrics that we need to attain to open schools and get sports going,” North Medford High School Football Coach, Steve Turner said.

Fall sports will be moved to March and April with spring sports played in May and June. The high schools we spoke to said it’ll be busy, but at this point good for young athletes to have any season at all. The condensed season may be tough for multi-sport athletes, but schools are optimistic they’ll be able to work it out.

“Right now there’s a crossover but it’s if your teams in the playoffs,” Heard said. “Three-sport athletes will still be able to participate.”

While most have an overall positive outlook on the changes announced by the OSAA, they emphasize the importance of beating COVID-19 and meeting the new metrics to get kids back in school and back in sports.

“The state has to comply with beating this COVID-19 and that’s what’s people’s focus needs to be on,” Turner said. “We want to get kids back in school and doing extra-curricular activities but in order to do that we have to keep our numbers down.”

With this new change, other non-athletic activities and extra-curriculars haven’t been forgotten. Band, choir, speech and debate and other activities with no defined season will still get a chance to have their competitions as well. However, those will be happening towards the end of the school year.