Whether it was winter weather conditions that swept through Oregon or the rise of COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant, it was a rocky final week of the calendar year for high school sports.

The Sierra Nevada Classic, held in Reno, where multiple local wrestling teams were expected to compete between Christmas and New Year’s, was canceled.

The Oregon Holiday Hoopfest hosted in Central Oregon saw multiple teams drop out as a result of unsafe travel conditions due to snow or teams affect by COVID-19.

sAnd around the state, games and tournaments were canceled.

It was a week that summed up the high school sports experience of 2021.

“We were thankful we were able to hold the tournament together and get some games,” said Summit High School boys basketball coach Jon Frazier, who began to grow nervous as games approached and teams began pulling out of tournament.

“It very well could have just blown up and then there would be no games to play. In the end everyone wanted to have a bracket and a bigger variation of teams to play. But all of us were thankful our kids were able to play.”

Despite the final week of the year hitting a couple of bumps in the road, high school sports heading into 2022 could not have looked any more different than they did entering 2021.

This time a year ago, the rearview mirror of high school athletics — nine months of cancellations and postponements of seasons — was bleak; the path ahead into 2021 — the uncertainty of when sports would make their return — was murky at best.

The pandemic cut the high school state basketball tournaments short in March of 2020, then canceled the ensuing baseball, softball and track seasons, followed by fall seasons being pushed back and postponed for several months into March of 2021, more than six months later than their typical start times.

“We were in such a world of unknown,” said Mountain View High School football coach Brian Crum. “We were in total holding mode. We had just found out that we were going back to school after winter break, but we had no clue what it was going to look like when we came back.”

What sports would end up looking like was at times unrecognizable to what those in the sports world were accustomed to.

It would take three months into 2021 before sports would finally make a comeback. But the comeback was clunky. In most places, fans were not allowed to attend games, having to rely on streaming services to watch games live. Athletes were required to wear masks, the seasons were only a couple weeks long, there were no official postseasons and leagues were scrapped in favor of more local schedules.

To add to the chaos, rules regarding how to safely go on with sports seemed to change on a whim. Like when athletes were required to wear masks the first month of returning to competition, only to have that decision changed in late April. Now, athletes are not required to wear masks during competition.

“It was horrible,” said Bend High athletic director Lowell Norby. “Every week we would have two or three meetings about what are the new guidelines, are we going to have spectators or not, how are we going to do contact tracing.”

After a turbulent year, high school since September mostly resembled a typical prep season. Sports programs started at their normal times, teams played their typical league schedules during the fall with a typical number of games and there was a normal postseason that wrapped up in early December.

Even though there were still times when a COVID-19 outbreak within a school or team would send them into quarantine and have games canceled, the effects of the virus were minimal in the fall and few game opportunities were canceled.

“The OSAA did a fabulous job of trying to get kids games, the Bend-La Pine school district did the same thing,” said Norby. “We all worked really hard to get kids in a situation where they can play.”

“We were thankful we were able to hold the tournament together and get some games. It very well could have just blown up. Everyone wanted to have a bracket and a bigger variation of teams to play. But all of us were thankful our kids were able to play.”

— Jon Frazier, Summit High School boys basketball coach

“We were in such a world of unknown (heading into 2021). We were in total holding mode. We had just found out that we were going back to school after winter break, but we had no clue what it was going to look like when we came back.”

— Brian Crum, Mountain View High School football coach