Football officially done for 2020-21 academic year
In finalizing its winter high school sports season Thursday, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference announced the cancellation of its alternative wedge season — originally scheduled to run March 19-April 28 — which means that full-contact high school football will not be played in the 2020-21 academic year.
“The board did take action today, where we canceled the alternative season,” CIAC executive director Glenn Lungarini said. “We certainly understand and empathize that those athletes that would have been able to have some sort of competition in that alternative season will not be able to have that competition.”
The CIAC’s board of control officially approved a Jan. 19 start date for winter sports practices, and a Feb. 8 start date for competitions. A regionalized/conference-based tournament experience is scheduled to run March 15-28.
Among the reasons for the cancellation is the CIAC’s desire to field a full, unaltered spring season, which is now slated to start on March 29. In a letter to the CIAC, the state Department of Public Health advised that winter high-risk sports only condition through the end of the season, though the letter did not say anything about full-contact football. The CIAC and DPH did not discuss football when the two parties met to discuss winter sports.
“That means no high-risk sports through the end of March,” Lungarini said. “The alternative season really was a place that we were seeing those high-risk sports maybe shifted to. However, with no sports being played through Jan. 19, that significantly reduces the time frame that we could hold that alternative season.”
According to updated recommendations from the National Federation of High School Sports, if spring football is played, the CIAC would need to reduce the number of games played the following fall due to “exposure of concussion and contact within the same calendar year.”
“Considering playing any season this year would impact the following year, when we anticipate having to have a full fall season next year, was a consideration for the board today,” Lungarini said.
Lungarini said the CIAC was hesitant to move high-risk sports such as football or wrestling to the spring due to conflicts athletes would face in choosing sports. According to Lungarini, 38 percent of football players also play a spring sport, and 31 percent of wrestlers also play a spring sport. Twenty-eight percent of spring athletes play either football or wrestle.
“It would create quite a conflict,” Lungarini said.