MHSAA committed to winter season
The story around high school sports the past week has been the stoppage of the three remaining fall tournaments.
However, due to the threeweek epidemic order, winter sports in Michigan have also found themselves put to a stop once again.
It was on March 12 that the MHSAA put a stop to the postseasons for boys and girls basketball, ice hockey, boys swimming & diving, and gymnastics.
Now, as hockey was set to begin competitions this week and all other sports would be involved in practices to start the 2020-21 season, those athletes find themselves in limbo once again.
“You feel for them. A lot of kids lived through that last year,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said about the latest stoppage.
Uyl stressed patience from athletes, coaches and administrators this week and remained confident that the MHSAA will be able to have three completed
seasons.
“We have shown that we can do this and do this safely. We have learned an awful lot of lessons over the last eight months,” Uyl said. “This hopefully is going to be a three-week opportunity for all of us to do the right thing, get the numbers headed back to the levels where we were able to play for two-plus months. If we are all able to do that, then I absolutely think we
have a chance to have three seasons this year.”
On Wednesday, Uyl and the MHSAA released an updated plan for the fall tournaments, as well as the start to winter sports.
Should the epidemic order come to an end on Dec. 8, or if the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services allow it, winter sports can resume practice on Dec. 9 with competitions beginning on Jan. 4 of 2021.
“By waiting until January to begin winter competition, the (MHSAA Representative) Council is allowing our teams to continue activity but also restricting the mixing of communities to further promote reducing COVID spread,” Uyl said in a press release.
Due to the current delay, and potential for further delays in the winter season, Uyl didn’t guarantee a normal winter schedule, but is focused on providing some form of a season with a tournament to crown a champion in each sport.
“Can we still provide a quality winter tournament that culminates with some kind of a postseason experience? What does that look like? How does that fall on the calendar? I do think that the experience of the last eight months does put us in a better
position now than we were last March.”
The MHSAA has provided new guidelines for each of the fall sports, requiring facemasks and limited attendance as of now. Attendance policies could be changed as required by the health department.
“Right now it’s two per participant, but it could be zero,” Uyl said of attendance of winter events. “We have to do everything we can. The bottom line is giving an experience for kids. That’s what’s going to drive our (winter) decisions as well.”
In sports like basketball, all timeouts will now be full timeouts in order to provide added rest for masked athletes.
For wrestling, more than four teams will not be allowed at a single event during the season, which allows for easier contact tracing and limited communities coming together.
“Given the nature of
that sport, there are some unique challenges in wrestling. When it does come to contact tracing, it’s also a sport that contact tracing is the best it is in any sport,” Uyl said of wrestling. “All of our regular season competition was going to be limited to a total of four schools, which means that in a given night a wrestler can get only three matches and, given the nature of wrestling, every wrestler would know (who they wrestled). There are no other questions about who they were in close contact with.”
During the football season, a lack of referee crews became an issue at times, forcing more Thursday and Friday afternoon kickoffs. Uyl acknowledged that getting enough basketball referee crews could be challenging at times as well.
“Our numbers are adequate, if that is the right word. Certainly, there are a lot of concerns. To be honest, the concerns have been – that I’ve heard – have been more practical concerns. The challenges of refereeing basketball, which is an up-and- down game and ‘ how am I suppose to manage the whistle and the facemask and being able to communicate and use my voice to players to de- escalate situations?’ Those have been more of the concerns that we’ve heard from officials than it’s been concerns or fears really about the virus.”
While the 2019-20 winter sports season was able to take place in some capacity, the same couldn’t be said for the 2020 spring season.
Spring athletes are also concerned with the latest stoppage and what that could mean for the 2021 season. Given that the fall season was able to be largely completed thus far, Uyl remains confident that spring sports will return in 2021.
“What gives me a great deal of optimism is that I do think next spring is going to be able to be played,” he said. “We have been able to handle things outdoors in the fall. That gives me great optimism that our spring is going to look that same way.”