RALEIGH — The state governing body says high school football will play no more than seven regular season games, while no other sport will play more than 14.
While everything to do with prep sports is still in flux, the N.C. High School Athletic Association released a tentative 2020-21 athletic calendar on Wednesday. Then the head of the group spoke to reporters via Zoom meeting.
Under the plan, only three sports will start in the first semester: cross country and volleyball would begin practice on Nov. 4 with their first competitions on Nov. 16. Swimming/diving would follow on Nov. 23 with their first matches on Dec. 7.
Que Tucker, the NCHSAA commissioner, said this was a conscious decision to push sports out further because there are still restrictions in place from Gov. Roy Cooper.
Those three sports typically don’t draw the same number of fans as football or even soccer at many schools, so if fans are not allowed, it wouldn’t be the same loss of revenue as not having gate receipts on Friday night.
“There were many speculations prior to our 2 o’clock announcement that sports would be canceled, that we would not be able to play at all.”
That led to a storm of calls and text messages before the calendar was released on the NCHSAA website and to coaches across the state.
“As I have stated all along, our goal is to return to the athletic fields and courts as soon as possible, but as safely as we possibly can,” said Tucker.
“We know education-based athletics has benefits for young people across our state. … It helps the physical, the mental, the emotional, the social well-being of our student athletes.”
• The schedule for football shows teams beginning practice on Feb. 8, with the season running from Feb. 26 to April 9.
When asked if delaying the start of football practice was in the hopes of a vaccine by then, Tucker replied, “We didn’t put this calendar together on assumptions.” She said the results were influenced by state health officials “as how it relates to how we could perhaps play sports.”
She said the situation is very fluid, but the NCHSAA, like every other association across the country, hopes that as the state moves forward, the conditions here will have gotten to the point that Dr. Mandy Cohen (secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services) is satisfied the statistics are where they need to be.
The seven games do not include the playoffs, Tucker pointed out.
How the playoffs for various sports will be carried out has not been determined it, she said. The state has a Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, coaching associations and an ad hoc group made up of coaches and sports leaders that can all contribute to the plan.
• With a football season of only seven games, what does that mean to much-loved rivalry games?
Last year, the Granite Bears played five games in the Northwest Conference, giving them plenty of chances to play rivals like North Surry, West Stokes and Elkin.
However, Surry Central played in the larger Western Piedmont Conference where seven of its 11 games were against conference foes. The Golden Eagles used those other four games against East Surry, Elkin, East Wilkes and Wilkes Central. That didn’t leave a slot to play Mount Airy.
If a season is only seven games long, and North Surry and Surry Central have seven conference games, would that mean Surry Central couldn’t play East Surry and North Surry couldn’t take on Mount Airy?
Not so fast.
“Conference games are always important,” Tucker stated. “Would we like everybody to play every member in their conference? Absolutely, we would like that. But as we move forward, we want to remain very flexible and very open.”
There will have to be some determination on how many conference games every team must play in order to qualify for the playoffs, she pointed out, but in working with coaches on these details, she knows the coaches understand how important those local rivalries are.
Tucker didn’t give an exact number, but it could be six games or five games in the conference with one or two games free to play rivals.
• What if the governor moved on to Phase 3 next month, asked one reporter during Wednesday’s online press conference.
“When we talk about the governor reopening the state of North Carolina, I think we probably are suggesting, but maybe not, that the vaccine would occur when the governor makes that announcement. Based on the information I have received, the vaccine is still a ways away.”
Therefore, she doesn’t foresee altering this calendar to start any sooner.
• One reporter asked about some of the overlapping of seasons such as sports that use the football stadium (lacrosse, soccer and football) all needing the field over the same period. Not to mention small 1A schools will have athletes who play two or more sports.
Tucker said the NCHSAA and an ad hoc committee of coaches and school leaders worked on this schedule together. The committee took the first schedule and broke it down and rearranged this the best it could.
The bigger issue she saw over worrying about field availability was the number of available activity buses. If a lot of events are happening in the same week, will schools have enough buses to get the student athletes to their games/matches?
At one time, basketball was the only sport happening in January, but that made the other months too packed, she informed. Now lacrosse and soccer start practice Jan. 11 with matches beginning Jan. 25.
Yes, there are concerns about playing outdoors in January and February because of the potential for bad weather, she admitted. Of course last year the winter was mild and bad weather didn’t hit until wrestling playoffs, she said.
No one likes sports overlapping, but there has always been some overlap like volleyball and basketball for the girls and football and basketball for the boys, Tucker said.
• A reporter asked about athletes playing multiple sports that do overlap.
Tucker said there has been no rule in place in the NCHSAA against playing two sports at once. Some guys play soccer during the week and kick for the football team on Friday nights. She recalled one young man playing seven different sports in a single season.
Now, an individual conference may have rules about overlapping seasons, she said, but those rules could be relaxed for this one year.
• What about fans at events, asked the press. Is the NCHSAA deciding for all or will it be up to individual school boards?
The governor is going to play a large role in that decision, such as how many people can gather indoors and also outdoors, she answered. There has to be flexibility on maximum crowd size to be in a stadium, then they can go from there.
For example, she said there is a 10-person limit on crowds now. If a basketball game were taking place, then the coaches, assistant coaches, referees and team managers would fill that limit without letting a single parent in the gym. She said the NCHSAA has no intentions of violating orders from the governor or the state board of education.
• Even if the limit is relaxed, Tucker expects there will still be some limits on attendance and spacing, especially with volleyball starting Nov. 16.
Around here, schools put the teams and scorers on one side of the court and keep fans on the other side. If social distancing is an issue, should schools spread fans out more?
”We certainly would encourage our schools to pull out both sides of the bleachers to make extra space,” Tucker agreed. She said she used to coach volleyball herself years ago; there is no rule against having fans on both sides.
• Basketball season has practices starting Dec. 7 with games going from Jan. 4 to Feb. 19.
A lot of places have holiday invitationals over Christmas break. Will there be an exception for those tournaments?
“That was discussed,” she said. “Bringing in teams from out of the area, it becomes problematic.”
When medical personnel question someone now, the patient is always asked if he or she has been traveling.
These kind of events would be bringing all of these people onto a campus and into shared locker rooms, increasing contact points, she warned. The same thing would apply to individual wrestling tournaments.
Every year West Wilkes hosts a big all-day wrestling tournament early in the season that is a good gauge of where a wrestler is at that point in his training. Such an event won’t happen now.
In fact, with wrestling being a sport where up-close contact is unavoidable, the season is pushed out to the last group of sports on the calendar, starting practice April 12 along with baseball, girls tennis and track.
• If the first practices won’t come until at least Nov. 4, why are some school systems opening up locker rooms and weight rooms?
Tucker said that some districts have chosen to return to in-class instruction. And in those high schools physical education is a course, and for many, so is weightlifting. These facilities have to be open to students so that the classes can be held.
For more on the sports calendar, see the NCHSAA website at www.nchsaa.org or see the NCHSAA Facebook page.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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