It's time to name Sinclair Street

The things you need to know from the weekend in the Northwest.

A quick history lesson:

All the street names in Portland were renamed after the city annexed the neighborhoods of Albina and East Portland to form one mega city in 1891. The move made sense for growth, but between the three cities there were 12 “A” streets, 12 “B” streets and 12 “1st” streets in the newly consolidated Portland. 

Mayor W.S. Mason quickly went to work, tasking Douglas W. Taylor, Portland’s superintendent of streets, with fixing the problem. The renaming process took months with arguments from just about everyone until Mayor Mason signed Taylor’s proposed ordinance on Jan. 13, 1892. Included are a lot of the streets we’ve all grown familiar with today — Ankeny, Burnside, Couch — named after prominent early Portlanders, settlers and, in some cases, Taylor’s friends. There is also a Taylor Street, which in Northwest Portland runs right through the heart of Providence Park. 

Anyway, Christine Sinclair has now won three NWSL championships with the Portland Thorns. She won two national championships with University of Portland and set the single-season Division I scoring record with 39 goals in 2005. She’s a 14-time winner of Canada Soccer Player of the Year, won an Olympic gold medal and has spent 15 years of her life dominating Portland soccer pitches. Even this year, at age 39, Sinclair’s five goals finished only behind Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver for the champion Thorns. 

Simply, there’s not an athlete in Portland professional sports history who can stack their resume next to Sinclair’s. And with all due respect to Taylor, it’s time to rename that street next to Providence Park after her. 

Christine Sinclair @sincy12

Champions!!! @ThornsFC

Welcome to The Columbia Cup

High school football playoffs begin this week across the state and for the first time the 6A division will debut the polarizing Columbia Cup. 

The Columbia Cup you ask? 

The Columbia Cup. 

In short, 32 teams make the postseason, with seeds No. 1 through No. 16 playing for the state championship and the remaining 16 teams playing for the Columbia Cup — the idea being that the world could use fewer 50-point wins by No. 1s over No. 32s. 

It’s a mostly fine system. Only five times in the last 11 years has a team outside the top seven seeds even reached the semifinals. Instead of No. 32 Reynolds facing No. 1 West Linn, the Raiders instead get No. 17 Liberty in a matchup of 4-win teams. 

It’s not perfect, but after the brackets were released this week there were far more complaints about the ordering of the teams who got into the main draw then the ones who were left out. 

Specifically, how is Sheldon not No. 1?

Matt Prehm @MattPrehm

Someone explain to me the OSAA state football rankings. Sheldon is the only undefeated team in the state, they are ranked No. 2, and they are the only team to beat the No. 1 ranked team West Linn. That seems backward.

At least the computers create equally bizarre rankings across all the levels of play:

Austin White @ajw_sports

@MattPrehm They are questionable for sure. See 4A, where 8-1 Estacada is 5 and 8-1 La Grande is 2 at 7-2 and one of those losses is Estacada. I don't think it favors one area over the other, but there is some wackiness

Plus, this might be the sanest thing I’ve ever read on the ol’ bird app:

Robby Scharf @Scharf_gen5

@MattPrehm On balance the OSAA rankings are usually fine. High profile stuff like this happens for sure, but the value in keeping the human element out of rankings in this state is something I think few realize. Not disregarding the Sheldon point, just in general.

For the record, The I-5 Corridor home offices are located in St. Johns so this is officially a Roosevelt Roughriders Substack for the remainder of the Columbia Cup.

A ranking a long time in the making

Not a bad weekend for the Oregon State Beavers. 

Sorry, need to rewrite that. 

Not a bad weekend for the No. 24 Oregon State Beavers. 

Whoa. 

If that looks a bit off, consider it’s been eight years since Oregon State came out of a weekend with a number prefacing its name. OSU’s spot in this week’s AP Top 25 marks its first time in the poll since Oct. 2013 and the first time since Jonathan Smith took over at head coach. 

Not bad for a bye week. Though, the respect isn’t completely there: Oregon State’s first game in the top 25 comes up in Seattle Friday as a 3-point underdog to the unranked Huskies.

To the power rankings!

Power Rankings

Alger

1. Oregon

2. Utah

3. USC

4. UCLA

5. Oregon State

6. Washington State

7. Washington

8. Stanford

9. Arizona

10. Cal

11. Arizona State

12. Colorado

Hoffmann:

1. Oregon

2. Utah

3. UCLA

4. USC

5. Oregon State

6. Washington State

7. Washington

8. Stanford

9. Arizona

10. Cal

11. Arizona State

12. Colorado

— Tyson Alger
@tysonalger