Plans for a shortened football season hit a snag
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic that has thrown a nation’s routines out the window for the past 12 months, Mother Lode League studentathletes, parents and high school sports administrators this week are waiting for clarity from the California Department of Public Health on the current league schedule for a truncated season that began Tuesday.
In football, for example, a shortened four-game spring season has already been thrown into disarray, and Sonora High School and Summerville High School will only get to play two games each, according to the current league schedule.
The bottom line as of Wednesday afternoon is that football games scheduled for next Friday, March 12 — Argonaut at Sonora and Summerville at Amador — will not happen. The only football games Sonora and Summerville will be allowed to play as currently scheduled are Calaveras at Summerville on March 26; Sonora at Summerville on April 2; and Sonora at Calaveras on April 9.
As the most recent pandemic surge eases, with case numbers and test-positive rates gradually decreasing in the Mother Lode region, the MLL has commenced what they call Season 1 with girls golf, cross country, boys soccer, girls soccer, and football.
On Tuesday, Bret Harte defeated Summerville in girls’
golf, with the Bullfrogs girls securing the low team score and the win, 250 to 324. Amador also played Argonaut in girls’ golf on Tuesday. That result was not available.
The principal problem that complicates scheduling for MLL teams is the six-team league has schools in three counties, and Tuolumne County does not border Amador County. League commissioner Jerry Rucker and athletic directors at Sonora, Summerville, Bret Harte, Calaveras, Amador and Argonaut high schools initially thought that would not be an issue and made their schedule. Then in recent days they learned that, yes, that is a problem, and according to state guidelines, high school teams from Tuolumne and Amador counties cannot play each other.
“We thought we were cleared, county health departments said it would be fine, then we found the state had not granted the waiver,” Rucker said Wednesday in a phone interview. “It’s frustrating, especially looking at schedules yesterday. We thought we could keep the league intact. That’s what we want to do. We rewrote the soccer schedule yesterday.”
Rucker is holding out hope that some kind of resolution can be reached. While the MLL’S school administrators wait on decisions that will impact the current Season 1 sports, they are also planning to begin Season 2 the week of April 12.
Season 2 sports as planned will be track, swimming, baseball, softball, tennis, and boys’ golf, Rucker said.
Football and soccer games are supposed to begin next week. Rucker said Wednesday the online schedules for Season 1 and Season 2 are the most current ones available. The question of whether the state will reconsider and allow teams from Tuolumne and Amador counties to play each other has not been resolved.
“We’re trying to make this work for as many student-athletes as possible,” Rucker said. “It’s difficult for the parents. We may have to readjust. We’re waiting for a waiver to come.”
Whatever happens with the Tuolumne-amador question, there are other caveats for this spring’s MLL sports.
Bret Harte won’t have a football team for the planned Season 1, Rucker said Wednesday, because it does not have enough players to field a team.
In addition, because Calaveras County borders Amador to the north and Tuolumne to the south, Calaveras High School can play every team in all three counties. Sonora and Summerville can only play games against Calaveras High and each other.
“Right now you can’t play a team from a county that does not border you,” Rucker said. “Amador and Tuolumne don’t border. The Amador and Tuolumne schools can’t play against each other` right now.”
Rusty Price, athletic director at Sonora High, said he and others are hoping county health officers from Tuolumne, Calaveras and Amador can get the state to approve the MLL schedules, but for football, time is running out.
“We found out Monday our joint powers authority — our school’s insurance — won’t allow us to play against Amador schools,” Price said. “They won’t insure us. We’re hoping to hear back from the state to keep our league intact, but I don’t expect us to get approval by the state.”
Athletic directors from Tuolumne, Calaveras and Amador met as a league Tuesday, Price said, to try to come up with solutions. Sonora is trying to schedule games against schools in Stanislaus and Merced counties, where by next week case numbers may come down enough so that schools in those counties will be able to schedule games.
In the meantime, Price agreed that scheduling high school sports in the midst of a continuing pandemic has been frustrating to say the least.
“We all got the same email Monday from our JPA saying they won’t cover us insurance-wise if we travel to Amador County,” he said. “We were OK’D by all our county health officers. They are still going to ask permission, but as a league we can’t wait on this. We want to start playing football games next Friday.”
Price said the league and the schools owe it to their student-athletes to get as many games as possible and to have a season of some sort, whatever it ends up being. When state guidelines came out, they basically made it very difficult for MLL teams. High school sports administrators have been clearing as many hurdles as they can. What happened Monday is just another hurdle they have to overcome.
“The things our students and student-athletes have had to deal with this past year have been horrible,” Price said. “The people in charge, what they’ve done, it’s awful. The state keeps kicking the can down the road.
“But we have to go forward for the kids. We’ll be happy with two games or one game. We’re going to keep going forward and do what we can. Is it better than nothing? Yes. We’re doing whatever we can for the kids and the community. Sonora High School athletics is the greatest show in town. Right now, this is about having the kids go and play their games. As much as we want people to be there, it’s about giving the kids a chance to play.”