COOS BAY — It was an hour before the second league home game of the season. Marshfield High School baseball coach Quintin Hall was throwing batting practice when he got the news.

Half of his 14 varsity players had posted one or more failing grades through the fourth week of the spring term. The year before, those students could have taken the field against Springfield anyway. But a new academic policy meant they had to sit on the bench.

Hall had already posted the lineup. Not only did he have to scratch three starters, he had to bring up boys from the JV squad to fill a starting nine.

“It was a mad scramble of trying to figure things out,” he said.

Five varsity players had regained their eligibility by the end of the season. But the team finished with a 1-14 record in league play. The JV team forfeited at least 10 games because Hall didn’t have enough players to fill both rosters.

Baseball wasn’t the only sport that saw its ranks thinned by the new policy in the 2008-09 school year.

Marshfield’s incoming Principal Greg Mulkey, who instituted the academic program in his former job as athletic director, said several dozen students were ineligible at the start of each sports season.

He and incoming Athletic Director Bryan Trendell agree there are kinks to work out. But Mulkey was happy with the initial results. Though about 30 or 40 students each sports season were ineligible after the first grade check, the number dropped by more than half the second time tests were scored.

“Once they were kept from participating, you could see an urgency in most of the kids” to improve their grades, Mulkey said. “That was our overall objective.”

The new policy took some adjustment for Casey Weyer, a Marshfield football player who graduated in June. Though he personally wasn’t benched for poor grades, he said his initial impression was the policy was harsh and unfair. But not being allowed to play gave students an incentive to get caught up. And getting a good education is more important than going out for football.

“I thought there should be an alternative like detention or something, however that would not give anyone a reason to get their grade up,” he said.

Hall agrees academics have priority over sports. He tells his players that before the start of the season. His concern is that athletes don’t always know what to do when they have trouble in class. Their struggle is exacerbated when students leave class early to make the trip to Eugene for road games against Midwestern League rivals.

Help may be on the way in terms of league travel, Mulkey said. Instead of playing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, he hopes other schools will agree to play one weekday game, then a weekend doubleheader.

“Spring sports miss more classes in general than any other season,” he said. “If you miss class, you miss assignments. Things just start to snowball.”

Hall said he felt somewhat responsible for his players’ poor grades, though he also thinks the system could be improved. Some teachers don’t grade daily work, so if an early exam goes poorly, a student might have to wait several weeks for another chance.

Mulkey said the school might reduce the frequency of grade checks, from the once a week that was done this year to every three or four weeks. That way students have more time to make up grades, and administrators aren’t scrambling to keep coaches up to date on who’s available to play.

“We still want to be holding kids accountable,” Trendell said. “I think that we will make some fine-tune adjustments to it. I don’t see the overall objective going away.”

MHS isn’t tightening requirements on its own. The Oregon School Activities Association is requiring that all students complete a certain number of classes toward graduation to be eligible. In the past, students needed to have passed only five classes the previous term.

“Basically it means you can’t be taking five PE classes,” Trendell said.

At the same time, students need to be in appropriate classes. Mulkey said most of the F’s students got were in science, math and English classes. Perhaps a student in physics or calculus would be better served taking an easier science or math class.

“Sometimes there are certain classes that don’t fit that kid at that time,” he said.

The baseball coach supports the policy and says his players will be better prepared next spring. Players also may benefit from a peer-tutoring program that Mulkey hopes to make available to all students.

“We need to offer something to our kids to give them the assistance they need,” he said.

— Editorial intern Andy Rossback contributed to this story.