ASAA: No reclassification

Last fall the Alaska State Activities Association Board of Directors passed a resolution to reclassify the conferences for basketball and volleyball.

Last week ASAA decided to scrap the idea.

The original decision would have altered the state's current classification and added a 5A level. Colony, Palmer and Wasilla would have moved up to the 5A level. The decision would have also lumped the three Valley large schools in with Juneau-Douglas and the Fairbanks schools.

Opponents of the reclassification argued increased travel costs for an already limited budget and the break-up of the Valley schools' rivalries with programs from the Kenai Peninsula.

"My take on it is you have to be pretty happy with the fact that after looking at the numbers, they are going to stay away from adding a 5A," Wasilla athletic director and Region III representative Doug Bean said. "ASAA stands for equity and it is not fair that our region was the only region forced to travel further distances.

"Our big beef is we could not afford it."

In addition to the opposition from the Valley schools, the schools who were originally in favor of the decision now think differently about the reclassification.

"There was not a strong push from the schools that originally wanted it," Bean said. "Turns out that the schools who originally wanted to break away from the region realized that no one would come down and play them."

Bean added that there was no way a Valley school could afford to travel to the Kenai Peninsula if they were already expected to make trips to Fairbanks and Juneau.

Cost was the biggest issue for the Valley schools. With a dwindling budget, schools from the area are already financially stressed. Bean noted schools would could only send their varsity programs on the long road trips and would have to scramble to schedule junior varsity games.

"You can only play the other schools in the Valley so many times," Bean said. "It becomes to be like dating your sister."

Now that the reclassification plan has been nixed, the Region III rivalries and the region basketball and volleyball tournaments will stay in tact.

The Region III basketball and volleyball tournaments are two of the most heralded events in the state.

Keeping the current Region III in tact makes more sense financially for several reasons.

"It is cheaper and easier to go to the Kenai schools than to Fairbanks," Bean said.

Bean also notaed that since the Valley schools were combined with the Fairbanks schools to form the Northern Railbelt football conference, the revenue generated by the football games has declined.

"We have not seen the big gates," Bean said of the games versus the Fairbanks schools. "It is not like the old days of the Soldotna-Palmer and Soldotna-Wasilla rivalries."

It was feared that the same thing that happened with football could have happened with basketball or volleyball.

The decision not to reclassify ends more than four years of speculation.

The original idea was brought to ASAA more than 10 years ago. It would have been the state's first reclassification since 1985.