WIAA shaking up high school sports, switching around start of season

One week after announcing that almost all high school sports will be moved and played after the first of the year, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association continued to make changes going forward.

And it likely will continue.

But here are the latest changes the WIAA’s Executive Board made on Tuesday:

• Boys and girls cross country and slowpitch softball are now considered alternate season options for WIAA Season 1.

What that means is that schools can opt to hold those sports in the fall, just like tennis and golf.

That’s what many western Washington schools do because of the wet spring weather. But the post-season for the above sports will actually be held in WIAA Season 3.

What that means is the state cross country championships, if held, could be around May 1, 2021 at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco.

• After listening to state health officials, the board elected to move girls swimming and diving from WIAA Season 1 to WIAA Season 3.

• The board elected to move football up a week, with practice to begin on Feb. 17. Football, which was moved to WIAA Season 3, must have two weeks of practice completed before games can be played.

By moving everything up a week, football can begin with competitions at the same time as other WIAA Season 3 sports (cheer, volleyball, girls soccer, girls swimming and diving, cross country and slowpitch softball) do.

• The board is allowing WIAA Season 2 sports to begin practices a week earlier, starting Dec. 28, so that athletes who want to play a Season 2 sport (boys and girls basketball, girls bowling, gymnastics, boys swimming and diving, and boys and girls wrestling) won’t lose any time in a Season 3 sport involving overlap of dates.

• The board elected to allow an out-of-season period from Aug. 17 to Sept. 27, and an out-of-season coaching period from Sept. 28 to Nov. 30.

These moves are for any sport that do not take place in WIAA Season 1 — pretty much all of them. The window mimics the traditional summer coaching window that the WIAA sanctions.

Football is allowed 20 days of contact practice during the fall during the allowable coaching period. But no coaching is allowed in the Aug. 17 to Sept. 27 period.

• Because each sports season will be shortened by 30 percent, the board will allow a sports team to have 70 percent of its normal schedule.

For instance, in the case of 20 regular-season games usually allowed for basketball, baseball or softball, those teams would be allowed 14 in this new, tightened season.

• Finally, the board listened to the competitive administrators of competitive cheer, who asked that the sport be moved from Season 2 to Season 3. It did so.

Top Walla Walla County male athletes

Scorebook Live Washington came out with its top all-time male high school athletes out of Walla Walla County recently.

To no one’s surprise, Drew Bledsoe and Eddie Feigner were the top two athletes chosen.

Bledsoe, of course, played quarterback at Walla Walla High School, then Washington State University before embarking on a standout National Football League career with the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys.

Even back then, when he was in high school, it was easy to tell that Bledsoe would someday play in the NFL.

As for Feigner, he could pitch a softball pretty fast. He started the King and His Court back in the 1940s, which consisted of him and three other players.

The King and His Court easily dominated the competition against full-team rosters while traveling throughout the United States and the world.

My father used to regale me with stories of Feigner pitching in the Richland men’s fastpitch league back in the 1940s and 1950s. Feigner was a highly sought-after pitcher in the Tri-Cities during a time when fastpitch was king.

Sometimes tournaments were run with so many teams and not enough fields that teams sometimes had to play at 11 p.m., or midnight.

The honorable mention candidates are:

• David Bingham, a three-sport standout athlete in football, basketball and baseball at Walla Walla High School who played college baseball at Lewis-Clark State College before being drafted by the Atlanta Braves.

• T.J. Conley, who was an outstanding quarterback at DeSales High School before becoming a punter at the University of Idaho. One season, Conley led the entire NCAA in punting average.

• And Peter Sirmon, who was a standout football player and wrestler at Walla Walla. He went on to the University of Oregon, where he played linebacker. Then he had a seven-year career as a linebacker for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans. He is currently the defensive coordinator for the University of California football team.

One guy that should have probably been mentioned was Bobby Cox, who played quarterback at Wa-Hi back in the 1950s before becoming the quarterback at the University of Washington, then transferring to the University of Minnesota.

While at Wa-Hi, Cox was an all-state quarterback and all-state basketball player both his junior and seniors years. He also was a half-mile state champion as a sophomore and junior, but he didn’t turn out for track his senior year.

After college, Cox played in the Canadian Football League and for the Boston Patriots in the Americian Football League, before concussions forced him to retire.

Notes

• Parker Hodge, who works with me on helping put together the Media Classic all-star basketball game with SWX Sports, has talked me into doing a sports podcast called Sports in the Tri.

In it, we’ll discuss local sports of the Mid-Columbia, including high school, local college sports, area athletes in professional sports, boat racing, rodeo — you name it.

The podcast can be found on ParkerHodge.com, and we hope to update it frequently.

Our first podcast involved talking to Hanford High athletic director Josh Jelinek, who talks about playing football for Tom Moore while at Prosser High, his Tri-Cities Fever playing days, his football coaching career, and his first year as the Falcons’ athletic director.

We also talked about what it means for area athletic directors who will try to put together the sports puzzle for the coming school year, now that the WIAA has moved almost everything to 2021 because of the coronavirus.

• Southridge High School named Ryan Stayrook its athlete of the year. Stayrook was a standout in football, wrestling and track and field.