State lifts ban on football, more
Most sports can resume in counties with case rates below 14⁄100K
High school football and other outdoor sports will be allowed to resume play across many parts of California for the first time in nearly 12 months, the state Department of Public Health announced Friday morning, culminating a long-fought battle for return-to-play advocates.
Football, baseball, softball, soccer, water polo and lacrosse are all among the sports allowed to begin competition next Friday in any county in the state with a per-capita case rate of fewer than 14 per 100,000 residents — currently 27 of the state’s 58 counties. Indoor sports were left untouched, without compelling evidence they can be played safely. Higher-contact sports that have been approved to play must also adhere to new guidelines, namely a weekly testing regimen.
Dr. Tomás Aragón, the state’s public health officer, cited declining rates of infection across the state as a key factor for the timing of the announcement, which return-toplay advocates have been anticipating all week after nearly two months of negotiations.
“Youth sports are important to our children’s physical and mental health, and our public health approach has worked to balance those benefits against COVID-19 risks,” Aragón said in a statement. “With case rates and hospitalizations declining across California, we are allowing outdoor competition to resume, with modifications and steps to reduce risk, in counties where case rates are lower.”
Some low-contact, outdoor sports, like cross country, have already begun in California. But the ruling is especially crucial for the state’s football teams, which high-school officials say have to get a season in by April 17 for next year to start on
time. Now, many of California’s some 87,000 prep football players should have time to fit in at least a fivegame season.
Football players, as well as athletes who play rugby or water polo, will also be required to be tested weekly if their home county has a case rate above 7/100K. That is because those sports are “likely to be played unmasked, with close, faceto-face contact exceeding 15 minutes.”
Other sports defined as moderate contact, such as baseball, softball and cheerleading, will not be subject to the testing requirement but it was recommended for athletes in all sports.
By lifting the ban on outdoor sports, Newsom has also paved the way forward for spring seasons to start on time in baseball, softball and lacrosse — all of which had their seasons cut short last year with the initial round of coronavirus closures.
However, now the battle moves to local health authorities, who could still restrict competition beyond the newly relaxed state rules. A source close to the discussions said there may be “one or two” counties that implement stricter rules that the state but it was not yet clear at the time of the announcement.
For example, Santa Clara County last month released its own youth sports guidelines that aligned with the state while under the purple tier but explicitly ruled out non-purple-tier sports. The same set of rules also demand 6 feet of distance at all times — difficult to comply with in sports such as football — and prohibit all indoor athletic activities. Although the CIF last week lifted its ban on competing simultaneously with two teams, Santa Clara County maintained its rule restricting students to a single cohort beyond their classroom.
California’s high school athletes have been sidelined since March, but the returnto-play campaign began in earnest this winter, when it looked as if many sports may not return, perhaps until next school year.
When Brad and Kirsten Hensley launched Let Them Play CA on New Year’s Eve, it was merely a Facebook group with a passionate few hundred members. Six weeks later, its membership had swelled to 60,000, Hensley registered the group as a 501(c)(3), and it had brought in more than $25,000 in donations.
Patrick Walsh had been able to hold some distanced workouts with his players at Serra High School in San Mateo, but the uncertainty of when his team — and all the others in the nation’s most populous state, with some 3 million youth athletes — would ever see the field again competitively began to give him panic attacks, he said. So, on Dec. 20, he launched the Golden State High School Football Coaches Community, which over the following two months would go on to collect crucial data presented to the Governor’s office.
Walsh’s counterpart at powerful De La Salle in Concord, Justin Alumbaugh, hopped on board, and in Southern California, so did Ron Gladnick, head football coach at Torrey Pines High School in San Diego. Eventually the coaches community swelled to more than 900 members across California.
That Walsh’s coaches community and Hensley’s group of parents converged Walsh credited to an act of faith.
By February, the two groups were meeting frequently with staff from Newsom’s office and the California Department of Public Health. But even after direct meetings with Newsom and Dr. Mark Ghaly, the top state’s top health official, return-toplay advocates had been rebuked with a timeline that only seemed to grow longer, despite public assurances that the state intended to get student-athletes back on the playing field.
Return-to-play advocates said they got involved to give their kids a voice in Sacramento, where they felt nobody was lobbying for California’s youth in the back and forth over coronavirus-fueled health restrictions. Most kids in California haven’t returned to the classroom or the playing field since last March, while college and professional athletes play on and other businesses continue to operate.