Questions surround fall calendar
High school coaches and athletes have no choice but to be patient and adapt as the coronavirus pandemic alters the 2020-21 academic year.
The first effects of COVID-19 on the Texas high school sports calendar are trickling in, and Houston Independent School District’s plan to reopen schools is a major swing.
The state’s largest and country’s seventh-largest school district will not allow athletic events while it starts the school year entirely online. Practices and sporting events for the district won’t return until at least mid-October,
with the district setting a tentative date to return to in-person instruction Oct. 19.
Fort Bend ISD, Houston’s fourth-largest school district, will not allow extracurricular activities as it starts the school year online, too. Elsewhere in the Houston area, Alief ISD will not conduct athletics while under a virtual schedule. Aldine ISD is starting the school year online, too, but plans for its athletics schedule are currently unknown.
How those districts’ decisions will impact the University Interscholastic League’s plan for its fall sports calendar amid rising coronavirus cases in Texas remains to be seen. The UIL is expected to announce details within the next week.
The UIL’s latest update says students who choose virtual learning will be eligible for activities under its umbrella as long as they meet the necessary requirements and criteria from local districts and schools. That could come into play for HISD later in the fall with the district saying it will give families the option for students to remain in an onlineonly curriculum or return to inperson instruction.
The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools — the state’s largest governing body for private school athletics — is scheduled to discuss plans for its fall schedule Friday.
The Southwest Preparatory Conference is delaying competition for its schools to Sept. 8 at the earliest, with conference games not starting before Sept. 21.
The SPC governs 17 private schools — 16 in Texas and one in Oklahoma. Six schools in the Houston area compete in the SPC.
One Fort Bend ISD coach expressed the hope that the UIL gives every member school the same calendar, considering numerous districts are not allowing athletics under an online-only curriculum. An HISD coach shares the sentiment.
“So many districts are having to face this obstacle that the UIL would do something about it to where we could all have the same calendar and they can adjust the calendar across the board,” said the HISD coach, who was not allowed by the district to speak publicly on the issue. “That’s my hope.”
Volleyball teams, many of which are still scheduled to start the regular season Aug. 10, are usually in the thick of district play by October. For cross country, October features the last stretch of races before championship meets.
HISD’s current plan affects its 24 high schools in different ways. Milby and Wisdom are in a 5A Division I football district that includes schools from Angleton ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Katy ISD, Alvin ISD and Lamar Consolidated ISD. Those districts are in different stages of their plans for athletics in the fall.
District 11-4A Division I and District 18-6A are all-HISD football leagues. Perhaps those teams’ schedules will only be comprised of games against each other if they are able to play by mid-October. A grace period for practices and preparation leading up to that mid-October start also is a concern among coaches.
Retired Kashmere football coach Garry Dunham said zone play could be an option, only if a season can be played. It’s been used in past football seasons affected by hurricanes and splits teams in the same UIL district into two different zones. It means not every team in the same league would play each other, but it could work in a condensed schedule.
Dunham also is a supporter of the growing notion that flipping the spring sports season to fall and fall to spring could work. It’s easier to socially distance in baseball, tennis or golf compared to contact sports like football.
There is no indication the UIL will switch seasons, and even then, there still are questions. How would it affect early enrollees for college football programs? One HISD coach said, “If I was a baseball coach, I wouldn’t want to do that.” Select baseball teams are currently playing this summer, meaning shorter rest for arms for fall baseball.
Dunham, who coached various sports and spent 37 years in HISD, understands the caution required for a return to in-person instruction and high school sports.
“You can always make up that time you missed,” Dunham said. “You can’t make up that life.”
One HISD coach brought up the possibility of athletes transferring out of the district if other surrounding districts can play. Another HISD coach countered the notion, though, saying athletics are being placed on the back burner everywhere throughout the state. The possibility of school districts being able to take part in athletics under different circumstances only will be addressed when the UIL details its fall plans.
One HISD coach said athletes eager to play may not fully grasp the seriousness of what is happening around them. He is preaching to his players to take care only of what they can control, especially academically as it pertains to the online-only schedule because when and if the season does start “we need to have everybody available.”
“We just all have to be patient,” the coach said. “We need to be patient.”