New era of prep sports begins Monday
After months of planning, the San Diego CIF’s 2020-21 sports season 1 begins Monday with cross-country and swimming practice in what will mark a decidedly new era in prep sports.
“We have the green light,” said CIF-SDS assistant commissioner Todd Cassen. “We had to have the lifting of the stay-at-home order to open up the purple tier sports on Monday, and it’s great to see the possibility for schools to get their teams out there.”
Cassen was also optimistic about the ability for the San Diego section to open other sports going forward.
“I’ve been tracking the COVID-19 numbers, and for the past two weeks for the Imperial Valley, (they) are amazing, something like a 20 percent decrease,” Cassen said. “We’ve seen positive changes in both counties so we’ll open up practice for season 2 purple tier sports around the 15th.”
After a meeting this past week with the Imperial County Health Department, local districts added their blessing to start of sports.
“All of the schools in the Southeastern Conference are on board for now,” said Brawley Union High School District superintendent and CIF-SDS Board of Managers Vice Chairman Simon Canalez. “The goal is to have a successful and sustained start to both sports.”
Valley school administrators will be monitoring the two sports, which practice and compete outdoors with smaller cohort numbers, to verify they can be done safely.
“We are going to use cross country and swim as litmus tests and monitor the ability to mitigate COVID-19 transmission before contemplating opening up to more sports,” Canalez said.
The green-lighting of sports after months of failed plans has Valley schools readying for the new normal of playing in a pandemic.
“We have started the process to get the purple tier sports going, and we are doing online clearance focusing on cross county and swim and season 2 sports golf, tennis and track cleared, as well,” said Southwest High athletic director Ruben Valenzuela.
While green-lighting practice and meets is one thing, meeting the various social-distancing requirements to keep athletes and coaches safe is a new and possibly daunting task.
“All this basically falls on schools, and as athletic directors I think we’ve received great support from our districts,” Valenzuela said. “We’ve received the protocols and ultimately it’s on us to make sure that they are enforced.”
Valenzuela said he believes the many new protocols for practice, games and road trips, including new transportation rules, are added but welcomed responsibilities.
“There’s a lot of protocols, but we will all do whatever needs to be done for our student-athletes who, for good reasons, had a big part of their experience taken away, back competing,” Valenzuela said.
The opening of the 2020-21 CIF sports season 1 was welcome news to two veteran Brawley High coaches, D’ann Luckey, beginning her 24th season as swim coach, and cross-country coach David Obeso, who enters his third season with Brawley and 17th season overall with prior stops at Southwest and Calexico.
For Luckey, the joy of returning to the pool is tempered by the loss of the Wildcat’s swim season last March.
“We completed one meet. Ironically, we had two others rained out, and then we were done,” Luckey said. “Even then we already had a freshman (C.J. Manuel) who had qualified for CIF in two events as well as three girls’ relay teams.”
The loss of spring sports has weighted heavily on the mind of CIF throughout the pandemic.
“It’s hard that spring sports that were cut off, I think the spring sports that lost their seasons have to be a priority … to lose two seasons would be bad,” Cassen said.
Luckey appreciates the opportunity to get her swimmers back in the pool while lamenting the opportunities lost last spring.
“Fortunately C.J.’s ready to go Monday; however, my seniors, some who had been on the team for four years, they were done,” Luckey said. “I’m happy for my six seniors now, to lose both their junior and senior years would have been tragic. … They’ve been swimming most of their lives, so I absolutely want to see them finish.”
Obeso echoes Luckey’s sentiments about getting students back competing.
“At this point I just want to provide the kids with athletic activity,” Obeso said who ran cross country at Central Union, winning a Southern Section CIF 2A title in 1972. “They need that, without athletics, too many of them lose some balance in their life, and at least now they have an option to be with a team.”
Both coaches acknowledge that COVID-19 accommodations will change the coaching landscape.
“They are projecting that competition will be within the county, and we will abandon cluster meets where all teams participate and return to dual meets for safety,” Obeso said. “We want to be safe and insure we limit the contact between teams.”
Luckey explained that while the dual-meet format of swimming will not change, social distancing and safety protocols will be met, noting that the distance in a pool is 7 feet from lane line to lane line.
“Staying in the protocols should not be a problem, and I believe the kids will be so happy to be back, they will follow whatever needs to be done,” Luckey said.
While competition for both sports can begin Feb. 6, Valley swim coaches decided to hold their first meets on March 4.
“We choose to start later to get our kids in condition,” said Luckey, whose swimmers have mostly been relegated to dry-land workouts and swimming-specific yoga. “We will get our season in before April 17 because all our teams take some swimmers to the CIF meet if it happens.”
The Valley’s cross-country schedule will be decided this week with many questioning if the official start date of competition on Feb. 11 includes adequate practice time.
The consensus at this point is cross country would start later in the month as the CIF-SDS finals are tentatively scheduled for March 27.
Dates aside, Obeso is ready to go and believes his runners are as well.
“I’m chomping at the bit. I’m ready to go, and I think the runners are, too,” Obeso said. “What I’ve always done over 30 years is stay in contact in the offseason, and I’ve encouraged them to work on their own, and they do.”