New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
CIAC sports to practice Monday; football looks elsewhere
Most fall sports have the CIAC’s green light to begin full-team practices on Monday with some limited contact permitted. Their counterparts in football continue to search for a way to join in on their own.
Friday was a checkpoint day for those CIAC sports: cross country, field hockey, soccer, girls swimming and girls volleyball. The CIAC said it will check the state’s COVID-19 metrics at each step as it adds practice time or contact and brings teams together. Those sports can play their first games as early as Oct. 1.
“We are moving forward as planned,” CIAC executive director Glenn Lungarini said Friday.
The CIAC Board of Control ended the idea of a sanctioned fall 11-on-11 season on Wednesday, voting to stick with its Sept. 4 decision to cancel but, for the first time, considering a full-contact season later in the school year.
That wasn’t enough, said Hand football coach Steve Filippone: Without guaranteeing a spring season (metrics permitting), and saying that fall leagues independent of the CIAC wouldn’t jeopardize anyone’s spring eligibility, it opened the door for such leagues. He said it also pits coaches who want to save a full-contact fall season against their administrators and local officials, seeking approvals to play.
“If for some reason we don’t (succeed), to parents and players, it’s going to look like we gave up, that we don’t care,” Filippone said. “We may be in a worse spot than a week ago.”
The state’s reopening rules have allowed fullcontact youth football since July 6. The CIAC several times sought the state Department of Public Health’s recommendation to play a full-contact fall high school football season, but DPH, citing the sport’s high risk for transmitting COVID-19, declined to recommend playing.
The CIAC said Wednesday that its football committee would make recommendations for modified “football activities” for the fall, such as 7-on-7 passing leagues. Those recommendations haven’t come yet, either.
The Southern Connecticut Conference is interested in pursuing an organized 7-on-7 league, quite possibly to start as early as October, league commissioner Al Carbone said Friday.
“A clear majority of them said yes. We are going to get some feedback from coach