The sports landscape on the South Coast would see significant changes under the first proposal of the Oregon School Activities Association’s Classification and Districting Committee.

The committee is considering various possibilities for how leagues and classifications should be aligned for the next four-year time block, which starts in the fall of 2010.

The group held its third meeting on Nov. 17, and put forward the proposal in an attempt to draw input from schools around the state, said Peter Weber, an OSAA assistant executive director.

The committee hadn’t gotten many comments before the proposal was released, Weber said. Now comments are starting to flow in.

Weber said the first proposal follows two themes that seemed to be prevalent statewide: People generally are happy with the six-classification format that started in 2006 and schools in the larger classifications would like to have larger leagues.

That comment was the first one made in the initial meeting of the committee in September, when athletic directors from Eugene, Grants Pass and Medford — who fought the new league alignments in the current time block — said if the six-classification format remains, they should stay as one league, but would like more schools.

The theory supporting larger leagues is that schools then will have less travel for nonleague games. Class 6A teams in the Southwest Conference often play nonleague games against schools in the Portland area, where the majority of the schools in the classification can be found.

The initial proposal calls for enrollment limits to remain unchanged within the classifications, though changes to the limits likely will be considered at future meetings. The proposal uses for enrollment figures the average daily membership numbers for OSAA schools during the 2007-2008 school year.

On the South Coast, the biggest changes would be the switching of four schools into Class 2A, which currently includes no members from the area.

Gold Beach, Myrtle Point and Reedsport would drop down from Class 3A, while Pacific would move up from Class 1A.

No other South Coast schools would change leagues, though some of the teams in each of the leagues would change.

Marshfield would remain in the Class 5A Midwestern League, but that league would grow from six to 10 schools with the addition of Marist, a private school in Eugene, and Ashland, Crater and Eagle Point from the southern part of the state.

North Bend, Siuslaw and Brookings-Harbor would stay in the Class 4A Far West League, which would grow by just one school, adding Cottage Grove from the Sky-Em League, which would be disbanded. Junction City and Elmira would move from the Sky-Em to the Val-Co League, while Sisters and La Pine would move to the Greater Oregon League, Marist to the Midwestern League and Pleasant Hill to the Class 3A PacWest Conference.

Coquille and Bandon would remain in the Sunset Conference, which would no longer be mostly a coastal league. New schools in the conference would be St. Mary’s of Medford and Lakeview, which is at least a seven-hour drive from Coquille.

Powers would remain in the Class 1A Skyline League, which would add Lifegate Christian and Oak Hill Academy of Eugene and North Douglas and lose Days Creek and Pacific to Class 2A.

The complete proposal, along with the enrollments for all the schools, can be found on the OSAA Web page at www.osaa.org.

The committee is hoping to receive additional comments from schools prior to its next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 12 at the OSAA office in Wilsonville. Written suggestions and proposals can be e-mailed to Weber at peterw@osaa.org.

First OSAA Proposal

Leagues with South Coast schools, listed with school enrollments for 2007-2008 school year.

Class 5A (851-1,521 students)

Midwestern League

School            Enrollment

Ashland    1,019

Churchill    1,152

Crater    1,486

Eagle Point    1,162

Maris    507

Marshfield    1,045

North Eugene    988

Springfield    1,389

Thurston    1,421

Willamettte    1,472

Class 4A (401-850 students)

Far West League

School            Enrollment

Brookings-Harbor    583

Cottage Grove    827

Douglas    446

North Bend    566*

Siuslaw    495

South Umpqua    513

Sutherlin    440

*Enrollment does not include Oregon Coast Technical Institute

Class 3A (236-400 students)

Sunset Conference

School            Enrollment

Bandon    269

Cascade Christian    311

Coquille    293

Glide    243

Lakeview    265

Rogue River    336

St. Mary’s    281

Class 2A (116-235 students)

Mountain View Conference

School            Enrollment

Crow    125

Gold Beach    226

Myrtle Point    223

Oakland    188

Oakridge    209

Pacific    135

Reedsport    232

Yoncalla    118

Class 1A (up to 115 students)

Skyline League

School             Enrollment

Camas Valley    42

Elkton    61

Lifegate Christian    70

North Douglas    109

Oak Hill    46

Powers    45

UVC    88