Schools forced into hard decisions about games
On Friday and Saturday, many high school football stadiums in Northern California are going to be empty when they should be filled with cheers, marching bands and touchdowns.
At a time when any diversion from the Wine Country disaster would be welcome, games are going to be canceled, and not just in the fire zones.
Commissioners, athletic directors, coaches and school principals have put down their playbooks and grabbed ever-changing pollutant reports from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to decide what to do. It’s not just football, but all fall sports. Soccer games, tennis matches and
even indoor volleyball matches in gyms with poor air circulation — in places as far flung as Richmond, Pleasanton and Vallejo — are in jeopardy or already canceled because of the smoke that has blanketed the region and the dangerous pollutants it contains.
For Robert Pinoli, commissioner of the Coastal Mountain Conference, which encompasses 27 high schools in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties, many decisions will be made for him. Most of the schools have been closed indefinitely since the fires began. Some have been damaged.
“It’s been pure hell,” said Pinoli, who has spent hours on the phone over the past few days with schools that are canceling practices and games this week.
Cardinal Newman High in Santa Rosa, which plays in a different conference, sustained catastrophic damage. Sporting events are not even an option.
With the fires uncontained, so many people dead, injured or missing, thousands of homes and businesses burned and the skies hazy with acrid smoke, school sports have to take a back seat.
School administrators and league officials are getting guidance, but no mandates, from the North Coast Section, the body that governs athletics at 174 high schools from Fremont to the Oregon border.
It’s up to the conferences, leagues and sometimes the individual schools.
“We put out an air quality advisory (Monday) morning before we really knew of some of the devastation that unfolded,” said Gil Lemmon, the section commissioner. “We reminded our superintendents and principals that they make those decisions.”
They have to be made on the local level, Lemmon said, because “we obviously have areas not impacted. In Fremont, the air quality is not that bad. Eureka is not that bad. To make a blanket statement and say ‘no games’ is going to make us cancel some games needlessly.”
Even schools outside of the fire zone are erring on the side of caution.
The West Contra Costa Unified School District has canceled all athletic practices and games until further notice. The East Bay Athletic League, which comprises 11 schools east of the Oakland Hills, canceled a cross-country meet scheduled for Pleasanton on Wednesday.
“Obviously the advice we’re getting is to limit exertion and outdoor activities,” said Marcus Walton, communications director for the West Contra Costa district. “We do not want to go against the advice we’re getting from our medical professionals.”
However, the question of football in that district remains open because it’s possible the air will clear by Friday night. Asked if decisions will be made day by day, Walton said, “Probably hour by hour.”
There could be football Friday night at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Like so many schools, Sacred Heart Cathedral has monitored air quality and canceled some practices.
But the football team was to hold practice Wednesday in Daly City, as it does twice a week, and co-athletic director Phil Freed said that Friday night’s game against Mitty will be played “unless something drastic happens.”
Those schools belong to the West Catholic Athletic League, whose commissioner, Joanne Fugate, said a final decision might not be made until Friday. The game could be moved to one of the league’s schools in the South Bay. Parents and students will have to monitor Twitter to learn whether they should head to Kezar.
Schools need not worry that canceling events will hurt their playoff chances. The section would not consider those games forfeited for deciding playoff berths.
Pinoli said he will continue to monitor the air-quality reports as well. His schools have the authority to cancel games and practices on their own. The conference can order other schools not to play if it sees a health risk. But it probably won’t come to that.
At least eight schools in his conference have canceled all games and practices for the week. They had little choice given the destruction and smoke around them.
“Last year we had a lot of rain and a lot of schools in the (North Coast Section) that got flooded where the roads were closed and the kids couldn’t travel,” he said. “That was kind of hard on a lot of schools, but this is the worst I’ve seen, the devastation we’ve had.”
Pinoli well remembers the 2015 fire in Lake County that destroyed nearly 1,300 homes. The community of Middletown was hit particularly hard. Several varsity and junior varsity football players at Middletown High were among the newly homeless.
Middletown hosted its first football game a month after the fire. It was a cathartic event that Pinoli would love to see recreated someday in the towns ravaged by the Wine Country fires.
“When you talk about Lake County, all the schools rallied around Middletown and supported them, and it was fantastic,” he said. “I think you’ll see the same camaraderie in Sonoma County.”