State should delay, but not cancel, prep sports
Plan C should be to shorten seasons
As I sit here writing this column, there are less than two weeks before the official first day of practice for fall sports like football, volleyball, cross country and water polo.
Dec. 7 is the date that all coaches and athletic directors have circled when athletes can actual practice, not just condition in smaller groups.
However, it’s hard to fathom prep sports actually starting that day.
Coronavirus spikes are rampant throughout the state of California. Solano and Napa counties are both in the purple, restrictive tier and showing few signs of improvement. Thanksgiving just concluded with some families ignoring the call for smaller groups to celebrate the holiday.
It’s hard to speculate if Christmas shopping and/or other holiday gatherings will have more of an effect on the disease. On Black Friday, it appeared that more people stayed home than usual.
And yet, there are crickets from the State of California.
The California Department of Public Health was scheduled to
release youth sports guidelines on Nov. 13, but that never happened. That announcement has been postponed.
But why?
The answer likely is — officials there have no idea. Things change quickly, sometimes week to week but other times day to day.
Here’s a modest recommendation — delay the start of practice by about a month (say Jan. 7 or so) and shorten some of those “fall” sports schedules with an emphasis on league contests. College conferences like the Pac-12 and the Big-10 did this. High school sports is not college sports but that’s a reasonable place to begin.
Is it possible that Jan. 7 won’t work either? Yes, but it’s a start. Plan A didn’t work, Plan B is falling apart so let’s give Plan C a try.
Plan D might be moving those sports into March and April but then schools face the dilemma of too many sports competing at the same time. That’s a problem when it comes to transportation, facilities and finding enough qualified officials/umpires and athletic trainers.
Many schools in the area have tried conditioning as a way to get athletes out of the house and in shape, and athletic directors have been strict about keeping teens in smaller groups. Kudos to them. The pandemic has taken a mental toll on everyone.
Sac-Joaquin Section Commissioner Mike Garrison in a memo to all section schools wrote, “When we combine the lack of guidelines from the State of California, along with the majority of our membership being under the purple (most-restrictive) tier, it means there is a very strong chance that Season 1 sports will not start on time.”
North Coast Section Commissioner Pat Cruickshank and Central Coast Section Commissioner Dave Grissom told Bay Area News Group that they expected some guidelines around Thanksgiving .
ov. Gavin Newsom did provide a hint of optimism during a November press conference, saying he “signed off” on potential guidelines. But the changing circumstances have prevented California’s Health and Human Services Director Dr. Mark Ghaly from sealing and delivering them to the CIF.
“I’ve said a couple of weeks in a row it’s close, but again, we received things as recently as last night that we hope to get out soon,” Ghaly said. “But to the governor’s point about case rates going up very quickly, timing is everything with this.” Cruickshank says he’s heard from many athletic directors, teachers and coaches within his section alarmed by students’ apathy in the classroom. Grades are declining and motivation is waning.
“We understand the importance of high school sports,” he said. “And I’m hopeful that those people making these decisions understand how much this means to kids and how im
portant it is to their physical, emotional and mental health.”
California is walking the tightrope of health vs. mental health and normalcy.
Right now, normalcy is losing out.