Mac Court To Be Venue For Both 5A Tournaments

The OSAA 6A Tournaments are headed for the Rose Garden in Portland for the 2010 edition of March Madness.

An agreement announced Monday, June 29th. between the Rose Quarter and the Oregon School Activities Association will unite Oregon's largest classification's high school basketball championships at the Rose Garden.  The OSAA executive board met via conference call last week and unanimously approved the site as the new home of the OSAA/U.S. Bank/Les Schwab Tires 6A Basketball State Championships.

It will be the first time in Oregon high school sports history that the largest classification of boys and girls teams will contest their state championships at the same site, as the final eight 6A girls' teams will join eight 6A boys' teams March 10-13, 2010 at the Rose Garden.

"We're convinced that the 6A championships need to be in Portland," said OSAA executive director Tom Welter. With a majority (39 of the 46) of the 6A schools located in the greater Portland area, Salem, and the corridor between, travel for teams and family will be minimized.  "This move not only places these events in a NBA facility, and the best basketball arena in the state, it also will result in considerable savings in travel costs and missed class time for the participating schools," Welter added.

"We are very excited about bringing the tournament back to Portland, which creates an amazing opportunity for these young men and women to play in one of the country's pre-eminent arenas," stated Chris Oxley, General Manager of the Rose Quarter.

The 6A girls tournament has been held at the Chiles Center since 1983 (counting the years of the 4A tournament, before redistricting to 6 classes), and has also hosted the 5A tournament since the inception of the class. However, the University of Portland recently notified the OSAA that it is no longer in the University's best interests to continue hosting in future years.

McArthur Court in Eugene will continue serving as an OSAA basketball venue, and continue to host the 5A boys, as it has since the creation of the 5A class. Additionally, the 5A girls will join the boys starting in 2010.  Combining genders' tournaments for the association's two largest classifications brings 6A and 5A in line with 4A, 3A, 2A and 1A which have played simultaneous tournaments at the same site for years, and in the case of 2A and 1A, for decades.

The OSAA moved what was then the 4A boys' tournament from Portland's Memorial Coliseum to McArthur Court in 2004 as part of a multi-sport, multi-year agreement with the University of Oregon.  The Coliseum had hosted the tournament for 38 consecutive years beginning in 1966.

Welter credited "The support and cooperation of the Portland Trail Blazers, the Portland Arena Management group, and the City of Portland for making the Rose Garden agreement possible."

The combination of tournaments will allow the regular seasons for 6A & 5A girls and boys to be aligned, and result in only one week during which tournament participation may need to be factored into the schedule, easing logistics for families, staff, and support units, such as cheerleaders and school bands.

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