Howard County set to begin competitive fall sports Feb. 13

By Brent Kennedy and Jacob Calvin Meyer

For the first time in 11 months, in-person high school athletics will be returning for Howard County public schools.

The Howard County school system confirmed in a release Friday afternoon that the fall sports season will officially begin Feb. 13, in accordance with the county’s previously adopted plan by the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association that allows for modified competitive seasons through June.

“The fall athletics season will begin on Feb. 13 as previously scheduled, with tryouts and conditioning building up to the first scheduled contests on March 5,” according to the release. “All students, regardless of their decision for in-person or virtual instruction, may participate in in-person athletics.”

Under state rules, athletes must practice for 20 days before they can take part in competitions.

Fall sports in Howard County include football, soccer, cross country, cheerleading, golf, field hockey and volleyball. The release states that school leaders and coaches will provide more information on each specific sport to families and students in preparation for the start of the season.

No in-person Howard County public school athletics have taken place since March 11, 2020, when the basketball state semifinals were postponed and schools were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The 2020 spring sports season was canceled, and all athletic activities for the 2020-21 academic year have been conducted virtually to this point.

In late October, Howard County adopted the MPSSAA plan that would have the winter athletic season run from Dec. 7-Feb. 13, fall sports start Feb. 13 and end April 17, and spring sports begin April 17 and continue through June 19. After multiple postponements due to worsening rates of COVID-19 infection in Howard County from November through January, the county canceled the competitive winter season.

At the time of the cancellation on Jan. 6, however, Howard County coordinator of athletics John Davis stated the county still believed it would have fall and spring seasons. With the most recent announcement, that looks to be coming to fruition.

Howard County’s announcement comes on the heels of the Anne Arundel County amending on Thursday its own plans to begin a competitive fall athletics season on Feb. 13, while Baltimore County also plans to have a fall sports season.

Carroll County has been the only local school system in Maryland conducting a high school winter sports season. Baltimore-area private schools competing in the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland and Maryland Interscholastic

Athletic Association have the option to begin winter sports early this month.

The decision to move forward with the fall athletics season comes amid the school system’s planning to begin its hybrid learning model March 1.

When the district said in early January that it planned to have fall and spring sports this academic year, it was under the condition that the distribution of a vaccine would “significantly improve the community health metrics.” Since that message, the metrics in the county and state have indeed improved, but they’re still not at the low levels they were last summer and early fall.

Howard County’s seven-day positivity rate is 5.7%, while the weekly rolling average new-case rate in the county is 18.33 per 100,000 residents. Both figures, which are often cited as key metrics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, are both much lower than they were a month ago.

When the county announced the cancellation of winter sports on Jan. 6, the county’s weekly positivity rate was 7.4% — the highest rate since early June, when testing was at a fraction of what it is now. The weekly new-case rate was rapidly rising, and five days later reached a peak of 48.7 per 100,000. Since then, though, the county’s weekly rolling case rate has decreased in 21 of the last 25 days.