State says indoor sports can begin again
Local athletic directors react to state’s victory for indoor sports to begin
St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School Athletic Director and head football coach Lane Hawkins, standing on the school’s football field Thursday, took a 360-degree picture. Rotating his camera, he could see football, softball, tennis and baseball players practicing — and cheerleaders going through their routines — all around him.
“It was amazing. I could hear the cheers, the bats tinging, the weights dropping and the thud of the tennis rackets,” Hawkins said.
Soon Hawkins might be also be hearing the sounds of a swish or a body hitting a mat.
Indoor sports activists earned a swift and sweeping victory Thursday in a legal settlement with the state of California, which must now remove its additional restrictions on sports like basketball, volleyball and wrestling.
The settlement, allowing all sports to operate under the same reopening tier using similar protocols to those in collegiate and professional play, came in response to a lawsuit filed last month in San Diego County by a pair of high school football players. Their attorney, Stephen C. Grebing, said the settlement will allow all sports to compete in counties with adjusted case rates below 14 per 100,000, possibly as early as Friday.
Solano County’s adjusted case rate is currently 8.2 according to the state health site (covid19.ca.gov/safereconomy/#county-status).
St. Pat’s, Benicia and American Canyon High schools have been practicing or playing in outdoor games for about two weeks, while Vallejo and Jesse Bethel have yet to play any games.
Reactions to the settlement from high school officials were mixed, from excited and hopeful to curious.
“My initial reaction was excitement for the kids. But then from an AD’s perspective, it was more of a ‘How am I going to do all this,'”
Hawkins said, with a laugh. “What are the steps and what information do we follow? I’m waiting on the California Public Health Department to send me documents on Monday. We have some meetings scheduled for next week. We need to go over a lot of stuff such as addressing what happens when you cross county lines.”
Benicia High Athletic Director and head football coach Craig Holden was also pleased, but had a lot of questions.
“I’ve been following all the sports people like CIF and North Coast Section that I need to follow on Twitter to be in the loop. The initial reaction seemed to be excitement, but then you also have to read the fine print,” Holden said. “There is going to be a rough schedule and a lot of obstacles to overcome. There’s isn’t just one big obstacle, but many such as time. It’s going to be one big tall task. Right now we are waiting for the guidelines to come from the CIF and North Coast Sections. On that day, we’ll see what guidelines are given and then all the ADs will meet and develop a plan. Things aren’t that easy.”
Student-athletes in all but a handful of California’s 58 counties will be allowed under state rules to play indoor sports. However, local counties and school districts will still have the option to opt-out of the agreement, Grebing
said. All indoor sports athletes will be subject to the same weekly testing requirement as high-contact outdoor sports in counties with case rates between 7 and 14 per 100,000.
California will only provide free testing for those high-contact outdoor sports athletes and coaches, as outlined in new guidance this week. For newly approved indoor sports, athletes and coaches will have to schedule tests through their insurance providers or a private company that Grebing said agreed to provide free testing for all indoor sports participants statewide.
Masks will be required for all coaches and staff, as well as players while on the bench — but not during competition, Grebing said.
Holden cited testing as one of the biggest obstacles moving forward.
“For football, you are tested once a week because you have one game a week,” Holden said. “But
basketball, volleyball, water polo, they don’t play just one game a week. So you’re going to have to be tested multiple times a week. So I want to know, who is the testing coordinator? Who is going to keep track of who has been tested and who hasn’t been tested. You have to look at this from two sides of the coin. The main goal is to be patient.”
Both Holden and Hawkins also cited venue problems as possibly making the situation for indoor sports a difficult task.
“You have two levels of boys basketball and girls basketball,” Holden said. “You have two levels of boys and girls volleyball. And then you have badminton and wrestling on top of that. That’s like nine or ten teams all trying to play in one gym or multipurpose room each week.”
Hawkins, along with Holden, said their schools might be looking toward renting a gym for some
sports. Hawkins mentioned reaching out to Cal Maritime for some of the sports.
Hawkins said that next week will likely be full of meetings, with schools exploring what their teams can and can’t do. Once that is decided, teams and leagues will start to make schedules.
Hawkins said he had talked with both Derek and Nadine Walker, head coaches of the boys and girls basketball teams at St. Pat’s, and both coaches seemed happy. Hawkins hadn’t talked to any students yet as Friday’s dual instruction at the school means no kids on campus on Friday. However, he was happy for them on Friday.
“I was always hoping for the best,” Hawkins said. “I needed the kids to know that we stood and fought with them. All year long we’ve had frank conversations with them based on the information we knew at the time. Dates continued to change throughout the year and we would keep informing our kids about what was going on. Some of the kids chose to do other things like get a job, but others continued to want to play their sport. So it fell into this thing where we helped each other out. At first they carried us, and then we carried them. This was a hand-in-hand relationship and I’m so happy for the teams and the players.”
Bay Area News Group writers Evan Webeck and Darren Sabedra contributed to this article.