Erin Beil, a coach at Grant Union, addresses the school board.

JOHN DAY — On Wednesday, Sept. 15, Grant School District officials voted unanimously to allow a cooperative agreement with Prairie City for baseball in 2022.

The school board had seemed poised to do away with cooperative sports agreements altogether after receiving an Aug. 18 letter from Grant Union High School’s volleyball, basketball, wrestling, track, and cross country coaches urging them to end the co-ops amid a flurry of students leaving the district — mainly to Prairie City.

However, after multiple public comments in favor of the cooperative agreements, the board reversed course.

Hayley Pomeroy, the mother of Cyrus Workman, the lone Prairie City student who plans on playing baseball for Grant Union High School in 2022, made an impassioned statement to the board via Zoom.

Pomeroy said she was born and raised in Grant County and told the board that her son was born with congenital heart disease and could not play football. The cardiologist, she said, would not clear him to play. However, she said, Workman was OK’d by his doctor to play baseball and basketball.

Without a cooperative agreement, Pomeroy said, Cyrus would not get to play baseball.

Pomeroy asked the board if they would approve a policy that promoted a “gang mentality.”

She said the coaches state in their letter that the district should only provide sports at Grant Union for Prospectors.

“Is it because of geographical territory?,” Pomeroy asked. “Is it because Panthers wear orange and Prospectors wear red?”

Pomeroy asked the board if the proposal to end cooperative agreements was to improve the board’s “inability to retain students.”

She also asked if a cooperative agreement was in place for the softball team. If so, why is one not in place for the baseball program? Indeed, the board approved the softball team’s 2022 agreement.

“Is that not a conflict with your student rights and discrimination policies?” Pomeroy asked the board. “It’s OK for the girls, but not for the boys.”

Cyrus’ grandfather Mike Workman said rural communities need cooperative sports agreements to help give young people opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Workman said the only consideration he could see for not co-oping is if the combined enrollment pushed Grant Union into the 3-A level.

That is not the case in this situation, he said. Workman said the combined enrollment, according to the Oregon School Activities Association, is 200. He said 206 would reclassify Grant Union as a 3-A school. Even if the number was over 205, Workman said, OSAA has an exemption based on the number of participants from each school. For example, he said, Grant Union has 20 players. Prairie City has two. The exemption would be allowed, according to Workman.

Workman said Prairie City has not failed at a high school baseball team in 15 years, except for a co-ed team in 2014.

In other words, he said, Prairie City had not fielded a competitive baseball team since 2006. Likewise, he said, the school had never fielded a softball team or even a dance team.

Workman said Prairie City restarted its little league program after a roughly five-year hiatus, and some local kids have gone on to play in John Day.

He said youth sports not only teach fundamentals of the game, but they also bring kids together.

The kids, Workman said, develop relationships with others from neighboring communities.

Workman said these friendships continue to grow into their high school years, partly because of the co-op agreements.

“High school sports are not so much about winning and losing,” he said. “It’s about learning life lessons, building character through sportsmanship, hard work and responsibility.”

Likewise, he said, rural communities need cooperative agreements to help give young people opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise.

In emotional testimony, Cyrus told the board that doctors had cleared him to play baseball and basketball; it means much more to him to play. He said head coach RC Huerta and his teammates made him feel at home last season through their friendship and the respect he gained for the Grant Union program.

“To have it taken away from me breaks my heart,” Cyrus said.

One of the criticisms of the cooperative agreements was that Prairie City students had taken playing time away from Grant Union students. For her part, Grant Union student and softball player Paige Weaver told the board that the times she was benched for a Prairie City student was because that person was “better-fitted for that job at that time.”

She said she did not think it was for “political reasons” or because the other player was from Prairie City.

Weaver said the whole county needs to be included when people talk about the community.

“We are too small of a town,” she said. “Not only here, but Dayville, Monument, Prairie City, Long Creek, and when we talk community, we mean everybody in our county.”

She said the board could not exclude those players from neighboring towns who rely on sports for scholarships to go on to college.

Zach Williams, Grant Union’s softball coach, told the board that he had never heard one of his players complain about losing playing time to a Prairie City athlete.

He said that the notion of them losing playing time to a Prairie City student came from an adult.

Williams, who did not sign the letter with the other coaches, said he did not do so because he disagreed with the letter. He said it had been said that he benefits from the co-op. Williams said he struggles with that because he likes to win.

“Nobody likes to lose as a head coach,” he said.

Williams, whose team has already been approved for a co-op this season, said if his team were not co-oping with Prairie City, he would have a roster of 17.

Which, he said, is the “worst” number of players to have on a softball team. He told the board that it is way too many for one team and not enough for two.

Shanna Northway, Grant Union’s volleyball coach and a teacher, said she signed onto the letter from “a place of emotion” and said she was on the verge of retracting her name.

Northway said she is in the “kid business” and did not want to impact the few kids who would lose out if the schools did not have an agreement in place.

That said, Northway told the board that Grant Union is “constantly slandered” by Prairie City community members, staff, and students when they go to Prairie City.

Northway said the issues with the co-op agreement are not a “kid problem.”

“The kids aren’t the ones that are causing this problem,” she said. “There’s a lot of adults that need to get together in a room, sit down and hash it out and become a partner.”