It’s decision day for PIAA on football and other fall sports
Athletes and coaches around Pennsylvania are anxiously awaiting the PIAA’s vote Friday on the fate of fall high school sports. No state in the country has had to wait this long for a fall sports decision.
According to the NFL’s youth football website and information from maxpreps.com, Pennsylvania is the only state that hasn’t made a final determination on whether to go forth with fall high school sports or postpone them because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 35-member PIAA board of directors will meet at 3 p.m. Friday via Zoom to make a decision. Judging from comments by PIAA administrators in the past week, it’s highly likely the board will vote to go ahead with fall sports. It’s also likely the PIAA then will rule it ultimately will be up to each individual school to decide if it wants to participate. Fall sports in Pennsylvania are football, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls golf, girls tennis, girls volleyball, field hockey and boys and girls cross country.
Some schools will opt out of participating in fall sports.
Harrisburg High School announced Thursday it has elected not to participate in fall sports. Philadelphia Public Schools decided a few weeks ago not to have fall sports, and Pittsburgh Public Schools has recommended not to have fall sports. The Pittsburgh board will vote Aug. 26 on the
recommendation. Also, two WPIAL schools (Uniontown and Summit Academy) have elected to skip fall sports, and more could follow.
If the PIAA and schools decide to have fall sports, they would go against a recommendation from Gov. Tom Wolf and the state departments of health and education that school and recreational sports be stopped until Jan. 1.
The PIAA basically has three choices:
• Start all fall sports.
• Postpone all fall sports and possibly play them in the spring in a shortened season after winter sports.
• Move contact sports, including football, to the spring, while still conducting non-contact sports in the fall.
Pennsylvania has proponents on both sides of the debate. Of 74 WPIAL athletic directors who responded to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette survey, 70% voted to play all fall sports as scheduled. But that means almost one out of three voted to move football and least some other sports to the spring.
Thursday, the Pennsylvania Principals Association released results of a survey that showed 44% of principals who responded agree with Wolf that all sports should be called off until Jan.
1. The bigger question is what will school superintendents and school boards vote if they have to make a choice?
Canon-McMillan football coach Mike Evans is one of the district directors of the Pennsylvania State Football Coaches Association. He said spring football has more support from coaches than many might believe.
“I feel comfortable saying there is a lot of interest in moving things to the spring,” Evans said. “I know that for a fact, especially in the past week-and-a-half or two weeks. I’m not speaking for the PSFCA. But I’ve been to meetings and I know the spring is talked about by a lot of coaches.
“I don’t talk to many coaches who think we’re going to make it very far into the season before it has to be shut down, and I think that’s a lot of the concern. The PIAA won’t give an absolute determination about whether there is a set number of games in the fall that would be a season. What if we get only two or three games in, can we then finish in the spring?
“This isn’t a football-only thing, either. We have over 300 band members. There are cheerleaders. Fridays are their game night, too, and what if they aren’t permitted at the games?”
No matter what decision the PIAA makes, it will have plenty of company with other states, at least in terms of football. According to playfootball.nfl.com, 18 states have decided to have football as scheduled while 13 have delayed the start of the season. Two states (Texas and Alaska) will have various start times this fall for their teams. But 17 states and the District of Columbia have pushed football back to the spring. Here are some example of what some other states are doing:
• Illinois has decided to have four shortened seasons. Football, boys soccer and girls volleyball have been moved to the spring season (Feb. 15-May 11). The fall season (Aug. 10-Oct. 24) will have golf, tennis, cross country and swimming. Winter sports will be Nov. 16-Feb. 13. Summer sports, including baseball and softball, will be played May 3-June 26.
• California, Colorado, Virginia, Michigan and North Carolina are among the states moving football to the spring.
• Ohio, Indiana, Alabama,
Tennessee, Utah and Oklahoma are among the states starting football as scheduled.
• New Jersey, West Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana are among the states delaying football’s start.
• Connecticut is in a situation similar to Pennsylvania. After the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference released plans to start games Sept. 24, the Connecticut Department of Health recommended a day later that football and volleyball be moved to the spring. The CIAC then postponed all practices until Aug. 24 while trying to work with the health department.
• Vermont postponed football season but plans to have a 7-on-7 “touch” league for schools.
“Our kids are doing a great job this summer and staying focused,” Canon-McMillan’s Evans said. “But kids aren’t stupid. They know there’s a chance if we start playing, it could be shut down and you can see they are a little worried about it.”
Meanwhile, the House Education Committee approved two bills Thursday that will go to the full House for consideration. One bill authorizes school districts to decide whether to participate in sports. But that’s essentially what the PIAA likely will approve Friday.
The other would give parents the option of having their child repeat a grade if they felt the quality of education wasn’t good enough because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill also would allow students another year to participate in extracurricular activities, including sports, which essentially would be like a redshirt year in college. The PIAA has said in the past that it is against an extra year of eligibility.
Changes coming?
It looks as if Allegheny County might be willing to change its outdoor gathering limit for WPIAL high school sports contests this fall.
Allegheny County has an outdoor gathering limit of 50 due to COVID-19 concerns. The limit for the rest of the state is 250. WPIAL officials and school administrations have said if there are high school sports this fall, it would be impossible to hold football games, and most likely soccer, under the 50person limit.
The Allegheny County Health Department issued a release Thursday that said the 50-person limit is still in place, but the Health Department is working with the WPIAL to “ensure safe events in the county meet COVID guidelines while also allowing sports events to occur with appropriate measures in place.”
Kiski in a ‘bubble’
One prep school in Western Pennsylvania is going ahead with fall sports by using a “bubble-like” approach.
Kiski School is a prep boarding school in Saltsburg. The “bubble” idea is evident in that the school will house football players and soccer players by themselves in separate dormitories. Those teams will play only other boarding schools that have strict COVID-19 guidelines. The football team will play six games.
Also, head of school Christopher Brueningsen said in a release that a key component to Kiski’s return-to-play plan is that the school received certification to have a lab on campus that will process COVID19 tests in 10 minutes. If any athlete or coach from any team tests positive within 14 days of a contest, the entire team will be prohibited from participating in the competition. Kiski School is not in the WPIAL nor the PIAA.