Addressing effects of reclassifying school sports

It’s been just about three weeks since the Northeast A League shrunk from a size-7 to a much trimmed-down size-4.

Had this been a human-driven weight loss program, it might have been a welcome outcome. However, this is high school athletics. And when a conference loses that much weight, that fast, it generates potentially unhealthy side effects.

NEA athletic directors knew in advance what was about to hit when the board of directors of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association approved their quadrennial slicing and dicing of high school sports leagues in a Jan. 21 meeting.

Shifts in enrollments leave some schools moving up — like the NEA’s Deer Park reluctantly doing so to join the 2A Greater Spokane League — adding nearly 70 students. Deer Park petitioned to stay 1A, but its plea was denied.

In the case of Freeman and Newport, they drop down to the Northeast 2B and will hang with the likes of Liberty, Colfax, Reardan, among others.

Newport went from 303 average enrollment in the 2020-24 cycle to 227, down about 75. Freeman was the smallest NEA schools four years ago with 231 students and lost about 10 FTEs.

Freeman athletic cirector and former Medical Lake sports standout, Chad Ripke, suggested what was going on in their case.

“Kids opting for other methods of school, whether that be running start, home school or online in other districts,” Ripke wrote in an email. Freeman had in the past been a B-school, he reminded.

The first opportunity to address this for NEA athletic directors came at a Jan. 31 meeting.

Medical Lake’s Dawn Eliassen reported back Feb. 5 that, “I have almost zero information for you. I don’t feel like we have made any significant decisions.”

They did scratch the surface of the 2024 football schedule, arguably one of the more difficult tasks.

“We really have only worked on a football schedule, because we knew we were only going to play each other once,” Eliassen said. “Everything else is still up in the air.”

There are nine 1A leagues in the state, but just two within driving distance for Medical Lake.

The most likely partner for the new NEA is the Caribou Trail in North-Central Washington, when it comes to football foes. The two leagues generally meet in the playoffs and for postseason crossovers.

But it’s hardly as cozy as the NEA where the Cardinals’ longest bus ride is now 65 miles to Colville. In the Caribou league, Omak’s the nearest at about 115 miles, but over dark and winding Disautel Pass.

Nothing has been poached with the CTL, however, which lost Quincy to 2A and sits like the NEA with four teams. Aptly nicknamed the Jackrabbits, Quincy increased enrollment by nearly 100 students.

“That’s probably also too far down the road,” Eliassen said.

But is incumbent on league officials to first solve football, both for its complexity and the fact that it’s the first sport to be played in the 2024 cycle.

“Football is foremost on the scheduling plate because it’s the most difficult to find equitable matchups,” Eliassen explained. “(Football has the) fewest competitions with the fewest dates available which I think makes it a little bit more challenging.”

Particularly when dealing with leagues where there are more members — and fewer open dates.

The new reclassification cycle, which has a potential do-over at its midpoint in 2026, saw some tweaks to enrollment and its six classes.

The 4A schools’ low-end enrollment range dropped by 99 students to 1,201 and that classification is lighter by nine schools. The 3A top went from 1,299 to 1,200 and lost six schools.

Schools in 2A (450-899 students), 1A (225-449) and 2B (105-224) stayed the same with enrollment divisions and 13 schools moving in or out of those leagues. Washington’s smallest schools, the 1Bs with enrollment of 104 or less, gained 16 schools.

WIAA numbers show between 2020-24 and now, Medical Lake shy 6.5 students. Riverside had the most growth in four years, up 32 (OK, 31.5) and Colville was up 11, each far away from moves either up or down.

The NEA decision-makers have their next face-to-face about a month from now but talk and email regularly. So, the wheels are constantly turning.

The forced “diet” the Northeast A League underwent was something everyone was planning for a while. Getting healthy again might be just as long a process?

— Paul Delaney is a sports writer for Free Press Publishing in Cheney. Email him at [email protected].