Trying to find a way to play
MIAA to meet Tuesday on plans for fall competition
As a decision looms on whether a fall school sports season will take place, leading voices across high school athletics, education and public health are looking to other states for guidance on how to form a safe return to play.
With just over a month until the scheduled start of the fall season, the MIAA Board of Directors will meet Tuesday to discuss options while awaiting word from the Massachusetts state government on specific guidelines to be met in order for high school sports to return.
Duxbury athletic director and MIAA COVID-19 Task Force co-chair Thom Holdgate joined a cohort months ago through the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association that brought national certified master athletic administrators together to discuss best practices on how to improve high school athletics. As the COVID-19 pandemic roiled, the cohort has turned into a forum for athletic directors from all 50 states and the District of Columbia to discuss their situations.
“We pay a lot of attention to what goes on in other states, but the reality is it really will be states in Section 1 we rely on,” Holdgate said. “People can say what’s going on in Nevada, but that’s not what we’re dealing with here. Any return to play is likely to closely mirror the rest of Section 1 — the rest of the New England states, New York and New Jersey.”
Over the past eight weeks the MIAA’s COVID-19 Task Force has met weekly, sometimes more frequently, in an effort to come up with a clean return to play proposal to present to the MIAA Board of Directors. The task force is expected to propose to the Board of Directors on Tuesday that the start of the fall season be delayed until Sept. 14.
The plan mirrors what came out of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) last week.
Games in New Jersey under the proposal can begin Oct. 1 for a majority of sports, with the football regular season starting Oct. 2.
“It’s great that the NJSIAA has come up with a solid, concrete plan that has three phases for teams to return to game action,” Seton Hall Prep director of athletics Larry Baggitt said. “While Massachusetts is watching states down here, our leaders are watching states up to the north but also Pennsylvania since it’s right next door. It’s definitely a collaborative effort.”
Numerous Massachusetts athletic directors and administrators stressed that the proposal to push the season back is not directly related to fear over the COVID-19 pandemic, but rather to give students and faculty members time to get acclimated to new safety guidelines for in-person instruction.
While the Board of Directors does not have to take the Task Force’s proposal, and will hold a vote on anything that is presented, president Jeff Granatino expects the rest of the board to take anything the Task Force recommends into serious consideration.
“Whatever the COVID-19 Task Force presents will certainly have a large influence on how the Board thinks and acts next week,” said Granatino, the Marshfield superintendent. “We put together a group that represents all fall sports and a variety of districts. In that sense, based on the work they’ve done and the differing in backgrounds of where they’re coming from, I think they’ll be taken very seriously.”
Regardless of any action the Board takes Tuesday, the MIAA and its member schools still have not received word from the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) or Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) as to what sports will be safe enough to play at the high school level. News from the two departments may be coming soon, however, as for the first time on Tuesday the two entities met along with the Department of Public Health, epidemiologists and other highranking officials in Gov. Charlie Baker’s office to discuss the prospects of fall sports. Also in the meetings are six members of the MIAA’s COVID-19 Task Force including Holdgate, fellow co-chair and St. John’s Prep principal Keith Crowley and Boston athletic director Avery Esdaile.
While those from the MIAA are there to provide input on how certain sports could safely be regulated and conducted, they will not play a role in deciding which specific sports the state permits. Meetings for the group are scheduled, in some cases on a bi-weekly basis, through the end of July although a joint statement could come from the EEA and DESE before the month ends. If the state were to follow the current youth sport guidelines released on July 6, soccer, football, and competitive cheer would be unable to compete, as they fall into the “high-risk” category. Guidelines for certain sports could change within the coming weeks.
An offshoot committee of the task force has been formed to discuss options in the event individual sports or all fall sports are deemed unsafe to play. Those alternative plans are still in the works and are not expected to be discussed at the upcoming Board of Directors meeting.
“We have to assume and plan as an association like every sport is being played until we’re told otherwise,” Holdgate said. “As it was stated when the initial youth sport guidelines came out, that group headlined by the EEA and DESE will tell us what games can be played and what games cannot. My hope is that after our Board of Directors meeting on the 21st people will have a better understanding of where things stand.”