Madras football coach Dan Hiatt, instructing players at a camp last week, has mixed feelings about the White Buffaloes' move to the Class 5A Intermountain Conference. Hiatt, also Madras' boys golf coach, is entering his sixth year at the school.

MADRAS – A year of dramatic change is about to begin for athletics at Madras High School, where new challenges, new opponents and new rivalries await.

The White Buffaloes, ready or not, are charging into the Intermountain Conference full speed ahead for the 2006-07 school year.

Madras High, like many other schools across the state, was affected by the Oregon School Activities Association’s decision earlier this year to expand from four to six athletic classifications for its nearly 290 member schools.

The change is one of the most significant to face Madras athletes in some time. The school’s sports teams, which have competed in the Class 3A Tri-Valley League since 1994-95, are moving up to the Class 5A IMC, where Madras will no longer be one of the largest schools in its classification in terms of enrollment but now could be the smallest.

There are questions about how well Madras teams will be able to compete and about the school’s below-normal sports participation rate relative to other comparable Oregon schools. But a reduction in league travel, the challenges of facing a higher level of competition and the opportunity to develop new relationships are exciting prospects just the same.

”There was a lot of talk about it (the reclassification) at first,” says longtime Madras High athletic director Margaret Sturza. ”There are a handful that are really against it and think we’ll be really out of our league in terms of competitiveness. But that is a small minority. Others seem excited to be able to see their kids play in Bend, be closer to home for road games and think we’ll do just fine.”

As Madras teams gear up for their inaugural season in the IMC, there is a great deal of interest – both in Madras and around Central Oregon – in how the White Buffaloes will fare.

”The rest of that league (the IMC) has to be licking their chops, trading Redmond for us, a little ol’ 3A school,” chuckles longtime Madras boys basketball coach Evan Brown. ”Do I think the (Madras) kids can compete at that level? Yeah. But will they be as successful as they have been? Probably not. But I’m looking forward to playing at a little higher level and looking forward to the Central Oregon rivalries.”

Adds Madras boys soccer and wrestling coach Paul Brown, who is about to begin his 21st year at the school: ”I’m actually looking forward to it. As a coach, you look for these driving factors: What can make us better? Can we do it? Can we be competitive? The bottom line is, we can. We just have to work harder, make some changes and do a few things differently.”

Change of scenery

@newstext:An obvious change with the reclassification and redistricting is establishing new relationships.

But Madras teams aren’t exactly strangers to current IMC members. The White Buffaloes have regularly scheduled nonleague events against many of the other Central Oregon schools over the years, particularly in boys and girls basketball, wrestling, softball, baseball, tennis and golf. And prior to its merging with Wahtonka High School in 2004-05 and joining the IMC, The Dalles was a member of the same league (Tri-Valley) as Madras.

Rather than head to the Portland metropolitan area to play the likes of Gladstone, Sherwood and Wilsonville, where a one-way trip from Madras averages about 125 miles, the White Buffaloes in the new format will stay close to home for the majority of their league road games. Trips to Bend (43 miles), Prineville (30 miles) and The Dalles (90 miles) become the norm.

”A trip to Bend is not a big deal to us,” says Evan Brown, the boys basketball coach. ”Our teams have always traveled well and a lot of our fans will make that trip. It will surprise some of the schools in the IMC at how well we travel.”

But Madras teams will face two relatively lengthy bus rides in the IMC – to Hermiston (about 180 miles one way) and Pendleton (nearly 200 miles one way) – that will make past trips to Valley Catholic of Beaverton or Estacada seem like a short Sunday afternoon drive.

Sturza says the difference in total athletic department mileage will be minimal because there will be an increase in nonleague travel. Madras often played other Central Oregon IMC teams in many sports to fill out nonleague playing dates but will now look west to find nonleague opponents.

The White Buffaloes will field teams in every IMC- and OSAA-sanctioned sport except swimming.

6 Now the small fish

@newstext:Madras High, which was one of the largest Class 3A schools based on enrollment figures from the 2004-05 school year (the most recent available), will now be among the smallest – if not the smallest – of the 5A schools in Oregon, says Sturza.

Madras reported an average daily enrollment of 881 students in 2004-05, which is within 6 percent of the enrollment of IMC schools Pendleton, Crook County and The Dalles-Wahtonka for the same period. Sturza says the high school enrollment projection for Madras this year is 923. The projection increases to 936 for 2007-08 before dropping to 916 for 2008-09.

The big difference for the White Buffaloes when comparing enrollment numbers is the far lower rate of participation in athletics and other extracurricular activities at Madras High.

Sturza says that Madras has had a recent average participation rate in sports of about 20 percent. Some schools in Oregon, particularly ones with smaller enrollments, boast participation rates of 40 percent and higher.

Reasons vary for the lower-than-average participation rate, according to coaches and administrators at Madras High. One involves the distance that some families live from the high school. For those students residing in Simnasho on the northern part of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, about 40 miles away from Madras, or on a ranch between Ashwood and Antelope, about 30 miles away, commuting time and distance to and from school can be prohibitive for prospective student athletes. Socioecomonic status and cultural beliefs and traditions among American Indian, Hispanic and other groups also play a role.

”It’s a recruiting battle,” says Dan Hiatt, the head football coach at Madras. ”We have a lot of kids who participate, but it’s the same kids out for multiple sports throughout the year. I’m constantly talking to kids, telling them we need you out for football, and I’m sure other coaches are out recruiting for their teams as well.”

The historically lower participation rate has meant that Madras doesn’t field as many teams in the various sports as many of their counterparts. The only fall sport in which Madras will field teams at the varsity, junior varsity and freshman levels is volleyball.

Unlike most of their IMC brethren, the White Buffaloes will field only varsity and junior varsity – sometimes referred to as ”frosh-soph” teams at Madras – in football, boys and girls soccer, and boys and girls cross country. Other schools of comparable size commonly field three teams per sport.

”They have a much bigger and better pool to form their teams from,” says Paul Brown. ”In soccer, for instance, those schools may have 50 or 60 boys turn out and may actually have to make cuts. At Madras we have two squads, anyone who wants to play makes a team, and we still don’t have 40 kids out.”

”It is real important for us to do a great job with our developmental squads,” offers Evan Brown.

But things could change in the years ahead, as the Madras community is expected to grow. More businesses and jobs should lead to more residential development. And that should lead to an increase in students attending Madras-area schools.

”We want kids to participate and want to provide them with opportunities to participate,” says Sturza, noting that if more students turn out for sports, a request will be made to the Jefferson County School Board for additional subvarsity teams and more coaches.

”When kids realize they won’t miss as much school and won’t be traveling as much (with the move to the IMC), it will increase our participation. I’m hoping in this new league we’ll get more kids participating because they will miss less class time.”

Competitiveness a concern

@newstext:The below-average participation rate is one of the reasons why the White Buffaloes may struggle in some sports against other Class 5A schools.

In activities like football and track and field, where depth is often one of the keys to the success of a team, low turnout can make it difficult to compete against schools drawing from a larger pool of potential players.

”When you’re the small school in a big-school league, it’s always an uphill battle,” says Hiatt. ”When you’re the small guy, you don’t have the depth.

”Our biggest issue is numbers and depth. If we can stay healthy, I think we (as a football program) can be competitive.”

”Our top-end athletes can compete at any level,” adds Evan Brown. ”The two big differences are the overall size of the kids and the depth.

”With the bigger-population schools, they have more kids to choose from and have more big kids to choose from. That has always been an issue in Madras: We don’t consistently get many big kids. The biggest schools, when their top-level athlete needs a rest, the next kid in usually isn’t much of a drop-off in terms of quality. At Madras, our next kid in is probably a frosh-soph team member. We don’t have the depth.”

It’s that lack of depth that likely will be the largest factor in determining the degree of success Madras High teams initially have in the IMC.

Prove doubters wrong

@newstext:Monday is the first day the White Buffaloes officially begin preparing for life in the Intermountain Conference. Coaches, athletes and administrators are excited for the challenges ahead.

”Yes, it will be a step up for us, but I really think we can compete,” says Paul Brown, the boys soccer and wrestling coach. ”The kids are going to rise up to that level.”

Madras teams have over the years enjoyed varying degrees of success at the state level. Many of those teams have also enjoyed varying degrees of success competing in nonleague contests against current IMC schools, most recently in basketball, wrestling, baseball and softball.

”I think we’ll be competitive in every sport across the board,” says Sturza. ”I think our kids will compete. Will we be at the top of the IMC? No. But we can certainly compete and at least be in the middle of the pack in many sports.”

Evan Brown says there may be a few hard times ahead. But he expects those to be short-lived.

”There will be some struggles,” he says. ”But hopefully they will be short-term struggles until we indoctrinate people that we can compete at this level.”

Sturza also believes that one of the other benefits of playing in a higher classification is the potential to expose more athletes to college coaches and scouts, thereby leading to more scholarship opportunities for Madras students.

This isn’t the first time the Madras community has had to deal with a major change in athletic venues when the ability of the school’s athletes and teams to be competitive was called into question.

”A lot of the parents, many who were my students and athletes when I first came to Madras, they remember the transition we made from the GOL (Greater Oregon League) to the TVL,” recalls Sturza. ”At that time people thought we were in over our heads, and we proved otherwise. I’ve already heard from several kids who are really excited for the better level of competition in the IMC.

”If our coaches remain positive, the parents remain positive, then the kids will remain positive,” Sturza concludes. ”It doesn’t matter what you are talking about, kids will pick up on that. Kids are more resilient than we give them credit for.”

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