Y-S sports reopening Administrators respond to change in state bylaws concerning team cohorts

At the request of the

California Interscholastic Federation, the state department of public health recently updated its youth sports guidance on cohorting with multiple teams or groups during the reopening phase of high school sports in California.

We asked a few athletic directors how this pertains to their individual schools during reopening.

Here’s what they said:

Joel Seaman, Yuba City High Athletic Director

The waiving of bylaw 600 again allows for students to play club sports and high school sports at the same time. It really doesn’t change what high schools are doing.

Seaman said CIF made the right decision.

“This, in my opinion, is a good call by the CIF,” he said. “It might help increase our numbers in some sports since athletes now will not have to choose between playing either club or high school – they can now do both.

David Chiono, Marysville High Athletic Director:

“We are looking at the new directive. We will be looking to

Chiono

Seaman

make sure we keep our safety protocols in place and try to protect our student-athletes

with this more risky behavior,” he said.

Chiono feels the change could be driven by outside interests.

“I have a feeling that this new interpretation of the guidelines is driven more by parental and or political pressure rather than science,” he said. “We have not made a decision as a school if we are going to change how we are approaching this issue.”

Bob Jensen, Lindhurst High Athletic Director:

Although the waiver of the bylaw allows students to play multiple sports for their high school this year, the risk is that a case or two of COVID-19 could detail the season for multiple programs, Jensen said.

“With that in mind, we are going to continue to restrict athletes to one cohort for the time being,” he said. “We are still pretty deep in the purple tier and would be much more comfortable allowing athletes to play two sports when we get into the red tier.”