Sporting Chance Should Ninth-Graders Play High School Sports? Central Valley Again Considering Question

At 6-foot-4 and 206 pounds, North Pines ninth-grader Chris Clark looks more like a high school student than one in junior high.

So, too, does Shaun King, who sports the beginnings of a mustache.

“A ninth-grader looks like he’s a couple of years ahead of everybody else. It’s very distinctive,” said their principal, Dave Bouge. “There’s a younger look, attitude and feel about a sixth-, seventh- or eighth-grader.”

That is why the prevailing opinion among educators is that ninth-graders belong in the high school. It is also why the issue of a ninth-grader’s appropriate place in high school sports periodically percolates to the top of the Central Valley School District priority list.

“It keeps bubbling up and bubbling up. It never goes away,” said Roger Rada, CV director of mid-level education. “It was the first issue I dealt with when I came to the district and has never been resolved.”

On June 4, an in-house committee will once again meet to determine if eight remaining ninth-grade sports can become part of the high school.

Sports to be addressed are volleyball, softball, boys and girls basketball, baseball, football and boys and girls tennis.

Already, ninth-graders from the district’s five junior highs participate in cross country, soccer,

“We are taking a sport-by-sport analysis of those still at the junior high,” said Rada, “to see if any can move up to high school without creating undue stress on facilities, and whatever other factors need to be considered.”

Bouge, for one, says the move of the remaining sports is overdue.

“I’m of the opinion that we’ve spun our wheels for 10 years. It’s time to make a decision and move on,” he said.

Having some sports at the high school and others still at the junior high, he said, is not in the best interests of the kids.

The sports issue is a short-term part of a long-range school board request to determine how to move the ninth-graders into the high schools. Within a year CV’s ninth-graders will be the only ones not housed in Spokane area high schools.

“We’re acutely aware of that,” said superintendent Wally Stanley. “The board has asked us to formulate a committee to look at the facilities and impact of ninth-graders at the high school. It’s a pretty half-boiled potato at this point.”

The athletics issue, by contrast, has boiled for years. In 1990 a committee undertook a seven-month study and recommended, with some strong opposition, that ninth-grade sports become part of the high schools.

No action was taken by the school board, but since then, piecemeal addition of ninth-graders into 10 of 18 high school sports, primarily the result of parental activism, has occurred.

At issue was whether the junior high four-sport season philosophy of participation over competition was fitting for ninth-graders.

The biggest argument against moving them up was that fewer ninth-graders would turn out, and that has tended to be true. The drop-off, said junior high activities coordinator Chick Sale, has been dramatic, although there is evidence of revival over the past two years.

“Numbers are down from when ninth-graders played in the junior high, in some cases as much as 60 percent,” he said.

High school coaches have been strong advocates of involving ninth-graders in their programs, citing early maturity of girls who often reach their athletic peak earlier, and the chance for accelerated learning, particularly for boys.

“We are sacrificing 80 to 85 percent of the kids who really want to go on and develop on the high altar of participation,” said University High wrestling coach Don Owen.

He argues against those who say it is too early to force ninth-graders to make a decision about which sports they will participate in.

“Life is a bundle of choices,” he said.

Owen is admittedly biased in favor of moving the other sports because his eighth-grade daughter, Megan, would be a likely varsity softball candidate next year.

But as a coach, he has seen the positive effects of having ninth-graders at the high school.

“There’s no doubt kids are a full year ahead of where they used to be,” he said. “Even middle of the road kids become more competitive.”

North Pines students Clark, who will attend Central Valley, and King, who will go to University, say they would have gladly played on high school freshman teams and said most of their teammates would have also.

Clark transferred to North Pines from District 81 and would have been a freshman at Lewis and Clark High School had he stayed.

“Knowing I was going up, I was ready for the choice,” he said. “I would have preferred playing in the Greater Spokane League. You have a longer time to get used to the kids you are going to play with (in high school).”

He and King recalled the advantage West Valley’s freshmen had in basketball. When the two teams met, it was North Pines’ first of 10 games. WV had already played 12.

King said there should be a place for athletes who may not have a lot of ability but try hard as opposed to those who turn out but don’t care.

But both say that those opposed to cuts, which is against junior high policy but could happen in high school, are unrealistic.

“They’ll be around in sports and throughout your life in jobs,” said Clark. “You have to live with it.”

Owen said that if the policy is implemented the way coaches want it, cuts would be at a minimum and that better recruiting could improve numbers.

Next week’s meeting is about finding a way to provide better avenues for teaching sports to athletes who want to learn, he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Photos (1 color)

MEMO: One sentence was incomplete in the published text. The complete sentence is as follows: Already, ninth-graders from the district’s five junior highs participate in cross country, soccer, wrestling, gymnastics, track and golf with the high schools.

This sidebar appeared with the story: NORTH PINES STUDENT ILLUSTRATES DILEMMA North Pines Junior High School student and two-sport University High letter winner Casey Lektorich is an example of why proponents say ninth-graders should be able to play high school sports. She also is a good argument for those who believe ninth-graders belong in the junior high with its four-sport season that stresses participation over competition. “I’d rather have a four-sport season, even at the high school. There are so many sports to choose from,” Lektorich said. Not that she is ungrateful for her opportunity to be the Titans’ third-leading girls soccer scorer with eight goals last fall, or for her eighth-place finish this spring in the AAA East Regional javelin. Had she been able to play softball at the high school, Lektorich revealed, “I wouldn’t have even considered track.” Now, Lektorich is miffed that she has to choose between sports. If she had her way, state rules would be changed to allow her to play two in one season. “If you can handle it, I don’t see any reason against it,” Lektorich said. Beginning in seventh grade, Lektorich has played softball, football, volleyball, basketball, track and baseball at North Pines, and soccer on the side. After years of playing youth select soccer, she’s glad that she had the opportunity to play on a high school varsity team while still in junior high. Because the Titans made the Greater Spokane League playoffs, however, she was late for the junior high volleyball season, missing the first match because she didn’t have the required 10 practices. That’s another rule she’d like to see changed. If two sports overlap, she said, the practice rule should be waived. For Lektorich, playing sports has involved a series of choices. In picking high school soccer she had to forgo the junior high softball season, which, like high school soccer, is in the fall. That is why track in high school became an option this spring. “I really wanted to play softball in high school,” she said. “My only choice was tennis (in junior high), so I went up and tried track.” She didn’t know how good she was going to become at the sport. She threw a season-best 114-feet-5 in the javelin and also pole vaulted 7-6 in an exhibition event that could be state-meet sanctioned in a couple of years. That success is forcing her to make a decision next year about which spring sport to play. “I probably won’t know until sign-up,” she said. It’s a dilemma, but a pleasant one she wouldn’t have been able to face six years ago. Mike Vlahovich