The Willamette Valley Jaguars, a professional basketball team that plays in a national developmental league, received both good news and bad news earlier this week when it comes to its hopes to have a presence in Philomath.
The good news? The Philomath City Council on Monday night approved a letter of support for the franchise, which even gives the Jaguars the option of using the city’s logo on its uniforms. The bad news? The team may not have anywhere to play locally with the Philomath School District issuing a decision that the high school gym will not be available to them this spring.
Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday announced Monday afternoon “that the Philomath School District will not be supporting the transition of the Jaguars to Philomath High School at this time. … We simply have too many things happening in the PHS gym and auditorium.”
The decision came out of a Friday afternoon meeting.
“We had a meeting with everybody that from this side had been involved in the conversation,” Halliday said, a group that included PHS Athletic Director Mike Hood and Mary Ackermann and Jennifer Griffith from the business office as well as herself. “It was really just sitting down to say, let’s make some decisions about what we can and can’t do so that we can provide some kind of input.”
Team owner Marion Clark had approached the city looking for its support after deciding to relocate the Jaguars to the mid-Willamette Valley. He had conversations with Mayor Chas Jones and talked to the City Council during an Oct. 14 meeting.
The council, which did see Halliday’s email on the school district’s decision, unanimously approved to issue the letter of support.
“I don’t necessarily see that as a nail in the coffin,” City Manager Chris Workman said during the meeting. “I think we’re still looking for opportunities for engagement … and future collaboration on things.”
Clark said he hopes the door is not shut entirely on his team making appearances in Philomath.
“I still want to play games at Philomath,” he said. “Even if it’s only six games, I still think the community would benefit from those six games.”
Halliday indicated that the school district may be open to continuing a discussion.
“We’d be open to the consideration of a game here, a game there, as we can fit it in,” Halliday said. “But we just felt like for the overall purpose of the long term, we just needed to come to a decision and be able to make a statement.”
The school district appeared to be exercising caution about not overbooking its gymnasium this spring. As reported last week, the high school plans to offer boys volleyball, which will be a spring sport.
“That’s the biggest consideration — the addition of boys volleyball,” Halliday said. “We’re just getting into when the practices and games are going to be for that spring activity.”
Hood said earlier this week that it’s still unknown how those practices and games will pan out as far as gym use.
This past spring, the Jaguars were able to use the PHS gym for practices.
“We were there almost all season,” Clark said. “We switched gyms from Eugene to Philomath, I want to say in mid-March, and then we used that gym throughout the entirety of the season.”
Continuing with practices for a season that ran into May, there had been no scheduling conflicts. But of course, a boys volleyball program was not operating at that time either.
“Mike Hood was great — he’s been very generous about opening the gym up to us and allowing us to practice there and everything,” Clark said. “We didn’t have any issues …. It was a great experience overall.”
Bringing up opportunities in Philomath, Clark pointed to an internship program that he believes could benefit students and the community if the Jaguars were able to have a presence.
“We’ve already had kids that have gone on from our program last year and got internships with the Blazers, so I have seen the success of our programs,” Clark said. “I think that the school, the city and the town would benefit from them. So I still want to continue the conversation and hopefully we can at least maybe get some if not all the games there but maybe six.”
Clark said even with a boys volleyball team or other organizations using the gym, the Jaguars might still be able to find open dates if on Saturdays or Sundays.
“This year, we didn’t plan on practicing at Philomath High School; we’re planning on practicing at the YMCA in Albany,” Clark said. “So it’s not a practice issue. It’s just, ‘can we have some games there?’”
Games are usually played on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays during the season, he said. Teams are limited to two games per week.
Another plan in motion that might benefit the Jaguars involves Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum. He’s waiting for a decision from the university to see if the floor there might be available.
“They’re definitely in the picture so I’m hoping that they’re going to give me some really good news this coming week,” Clark said. “Even if they can give me six dates, then that reduces the strain on the other gyms that I need to try to find.”
West Albany High, which has two gyms, remains a possibility for Clark, too. Just last week, he walked the facilities with school officials.
Halliday said she knew Clark had been approaching other schools and the conversation during the staff meeting last week kept going back to “Can we really do this? Or can’t we?”
“We just figured that it couldn’t be on our radar at this point in time for us with nowhere else for other things to go,” Halliday said.
Earlier this month, Osborn Aquatic Center in Corvallis announced that it was closed until further notice because of needed repairs. The situation will impact Philomath, Halliday said.
“With Osborn Aquatic Center closed down, we’re doing some things with the pool, which is going to mean that just the high school activity level in general is going to increase significantly,” Halliday said.
Workman said he hopes the letter of support proves to be useful for what Clark hopes to accomplish.
“I think the team has really done a good job of reaching out to us and saying what their intentions are … they held the free clinic here for our youth and I think they’ve been very clear that they intend to build community and I’m all for that wherever we can get it,” Workman said.
Said Clark following the vote at the City Council meeting, “To be honest, I could almost cry. I’m very passionate about what I want to do for this community.”
Clark added that Philomath holds a special place in his heart because it’s where he met his future wife.
“I’ll take the letter of support that we just got and reapproach the school district and see if we can’t work through some of the issues that we’re having with (scheduling) conflicts,” he said.