OSAA appoints new Championship Thresholds Task Force at May meeting

A new task force for the Oregon School Activities Association will look at the amount of teams and individuals who compete in state championships for sports and activities.

The OSAA Executive Board appointed the Championship Thresholds Task Force at its May meeting.

The 12-member committee includes representatives from each of the six classifications, as well as three additional at-large members (one each for Class 6A/5A, 4A/3A and 2A/1A), two representatives for activities and one for coaches. None are from the South Coast.

The task force will review current championship qualification percentages across all sports and activities and across each classification, including team sports and individual sports. The group will compare the percentages within each sport and activity and with other sports and activities.

The task force also will consider confines in activities, such as the maximum number of matches a day for wrestling and tennis, the availability of facilities, the loss of class times for student-athletes and the financial burden for championship participation by member schools.

Finally, the task force will provide the Executive Board with recommended and/or target qualification percentages for the OSAA State Championship Committee to consider when reviewing events and proposals from member schools.

The Executive Board occasionally gets requests for more athletes or teams to be included in state championships, and in the same meeting the task force was created, the Executive Board voted to increase the number of at-large teams for the state cross country meet in both Class 2A-1A boys and Class 3A-2A-1A girls by two this fall.