Oregon sports remain in a bit of a lull here in August, as is mostly the case every summer. So instead of just taking a strategic vacation from my fledgling writing “career,” thought I might share random thoughts on various items that I have either covered or have recently occurred in the world of sports. Note that this is an opinion item. You can disagree with me, but it doesn’t make me wrong. (insert smiley emoji here).
6A football playoff modifications
The OSAA’s Executive Board gave its final okay to major modifications to the 6A football playoffs in Oregon High School football. The board’s action splits the 32-team playoff format—which has been in place since 1979—into two, 16 team brackets. The top seeds will continue to vie for the state championship, while the 16-32 seeds will contend for something called the Columbia Cup. When I wrote about this back in early May, the idea was being panned by a few of the local coaches. And I tend to agree with them.
Sunset High School’s football coach did research on playoff seasons past, and found that a low seed hadn’t beaten an upper seed since 2016, describing round-one games as “a joke.” Strong language.
The fact is that this system has been in place since the year after I graduated high school—so it must be out of date. Maybe, maybe not. But this split format smells a lot like participation trophies for teams in the lower bracket.
Like many coaches and administrators, I would really like to see the OSAA shrink the number of classifications from six to five—but there would be predictably major push back from some 5A schools who have ruled the roost for decades now. I guess you can’t blame them—success is something we all want to maintain in our lives.
A few years ago, the OSAA dumped a short-lived “play-in game” system that allowed a handful of out-of-the-playoffs teams to square off for a chance to take on number one or two seeds in the main playoff bracket. It was quickly shelved after some lower teams were shellacked by nine or ten touchdowns. Better had they never had that play-in game. This splitting of the bracket is something different. It essentially formalizes the post season teams into the “haves” and “have nots.” And that is truly sad.
McNary football
A few of us were caught off guard when Jeff Auvinen stepped down as McNary High’s head football coach in early July after seven seasons. Auvinen is quite personable, and had gotten the Celts to the playoffs on a consistent basis. He announced his departure on a weekend on social media. I got to see him at a social function in late July, and Jeff didn’t really explain, nor did I expect him to, to be honest. He did mention that he would finally be able to go on a salmon fishing trip a buddy had been bugging him to take. Fair enough.
Best wishes to Connor Astley, who takes over at McNary. The 27-year-old Southern Oregon State University graduate is polite, enthusiastic and determined—and a young man who served as McNary’s offensive coordinator last season, and was part of a national championship team at Southern. Still, at 27, Astley is going have a stiff learning curve as part of the hybrid conference pairing five teams from Salem-Keizer with five from the Southwest Oregon conference, including the likes of Roseburg, Sheldon, and South Medford. Good luck, Connor. I mean that sincerely.
RIP, Bill Russell
As a kid, I remember watching NBA games on ABC television, and one star in his later years was Bill Russell. He was maybe a step slower than in his prime—I was just a grade schooler, so what did I know—but he still was spoken of with great reverence by the announcers. As well he should. 11 NBA titles, a pair of NCAA basketball titles, and an Olympic gold medal, first black coach in NBA history, are all part of Russell’s resume’. He was a winner in every sense of the word, and the sports world was shocked when he passed away this past Sunday at age 88.
But Bill Russell was also a man who worked to change our world off the hardwood. He started life in the Jim Crow south in Louisiana, and later moved to the tough streets of Oakland. Bill was never bitter about his situation, but was unwaveringly polite and respectful to most anyone he met. As his game matured, Russell did more (but not all) of his talking on the basketball court, but also promoted change for lower class Americans, regardless of race.
His mentoring program promoted in 2016 is a great example of this. USA Today had a feature story written mostly by Bill—who recalled his future high school basketball coach’s kindness in helping him to develop as a player. The man, George Powles, drove Russell to the local Boys and Girls club, paid for his two-dollar membership, and told him to practice basketball every day. Russell had just been cut from the JV basketball team as a sophomore after his first practice.
And of that day, Russell recalled that “if it wasn’t for the kindness, support, and vision of George Powles, I would not have played basketball.”
I taught a Sports in Literature class and used that story as a lesson about mentors and role models. Not many kids at the low-income school had ever heard of one or both of those terms, but it did get them thinking about helping others to become responsible grown-ups.
Bill Russell was always mentoring and teaching others. NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson says that Russell’s number six should be retired like Jackie Robinson’s number-42 has been set aside in baseball. I couldn’t agree more. It is the least that NBA commissioner Adam Silver can do.
Bon Voyage, Vin Scully
It was absolutely stunning when a second sports icon passed away in the same week. Dodgers announcer Vin Scully--who graced the airwaves in Brooklyn and then Los Angeles for a combined 67 season—passed away Tuesday at age 94. He was the reason thousands of Dodger fans took a transistor radio with them to the stadium—he was simply that adept at painting detailed pictures of the action on the field. He carried his skills over to other sports. As a San Francisco 49er fan, I was enthralled as he called “the catch,” which Dwight Clark snagged to beat the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship game in 1981, catapulting the Joe Montana-led Niners to their first Super Bowl.
I never had the honor of meeting Vin Scully, but I have chatted once or twice with Oregon’s version of Vin—former Portland Trailblazers announcer Bill Schonely. The Schonz, who actually had a brief major league broadcast career for the one-season Seattle Pilots baseball team, came to Portland in 1970 to call games for the Rose City’s first major sports franchise.
Schonely’s basketball broadcasts are hard to compare with the more leisurely pace of Scully’s pastural baseball contests, but his catch phrases of lickety-bridle-up-the-middle and the iconic “Rip City!” could still send a tingle down your spine.
The Schonz—who had been the Blazer’s ambassador for a couple of decades—retired this past month. He had previously served as the team’s play-by-play announcer for 28 years.
Bill Schonely is 93 years old. I agree with Bill Walton, who described him as “the most important figure in the history of Oregon sports…” He has been a rare gift that Oregonians should forever cherish.
A small bone to pick
I faithfully reported on Teagan Quitoriano’s return to the roster of the NFL’s Houston Texans this week. The former Sprague High School and Oregon State tight end had been placed on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list due to an undisclosed injury. All well and good, right?
I got cheap-shotted—or rather Teagan got cheap-shotted by a reader who questioned him being described as a “stand out.” When these stories get posted, there are sometimes several headlines, and in this case, I had called him both a Sprague High standout and an Oregon State standout. I pointed out that Quitoriano had been a first team all-conference player in high school, but the reader questioned his somewhat pedestrian receiving numbers as the basis for the description applied to his OSU heritage. The fact that he caught six TDs in a run-heavy offense wasn’t mentioned by me, but I did point out that Houston thought enough of Teagan to draft him in the fifth round as an honorable mention all-Pac 12 selection.
So there. Have a great day.