Schools will be allowed to make own schedules
Schools will be allowed to make their own schedules if sports return
SALINAS >> The Pacific Coast Athletic League board of managers voted to suspend all league schedules for the year, meaning all schools in the league will be allowed to make their own schedules if some sports are allowed to resume.
“This allows every school to make decisions with as much flexibly to respond to exiting COVID-19 restrictions as they can,” PCAL commissioner Tim McCarthy said. “We’re not locked into a league schedule that would probably have to be changed on a daily basis anyway.”
The league will also continue to follow the Central Coast Section timeline for the potential resumption of sports in their respective seasons.
Season 1 sports, such as football, water polo and cross country, will remain where they are if and when the stay-at-home order is lifted and the county’s status in the state’s COVID-19 color-tier system improves.
Currently, only cross country would be allowed in the purple tier for Season 1. Competition cannot begin until the indefinite stay-at-home order in Monterey County is lifted.
“We are staying with the CCS start and end dates for each season,” McCarthy said.
The CCS issued a press release last Friday, stating that all sports could begin practice, as long as they’re following the California Department of Public Health protocols.
With guidelines stating that sports not in the purple tier would have to practice at least 6 feet apart and in groups, most schools have opted to just keep conditioning.
“We are going to start back up with our conditioning on Monday for all of our sports,” Palma athletic director Rob Bishop said. “We have got enough coaches to handle cohorts at three different times.”
The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District also issued a statement, stating conditioning will continue for all sports, and no practices will be allowed without the consent of the superintendent. The district includes schools in Monterey, Seaside and Marina.
“I think that’s a smart decision,” McCarthy said.
Bishop’s decision to allow all sports to condition stems partly because the health department issued a statement stating athletes can only participate in one sport when practicing.
“We’ll do speed, agility and strength exercises,” Bishop said. “It’s not ideal. But it gets our kids back out doing stuff. We have a lot of multiple-sport athletes.”
The California Interscholastic Federation also reversed one of its earlier decisions, as athletes that are allowed to participate in a high school sport when health restrictions are lifted cannot compete in the same sport for a club or travel team at the same time.
Back in July, the CIF postponed the start of fall sports until Dec. 14. That has since been extended because of the increased numbers of COVID-19 cases throughout the state.
“We’re technically into those
(fall) seasons,” Bishop said. “With no postseason, that does give these sports a little more time and hope to resume.”
The hope, though, for an abbreviated football season is evaporating. The last possible day the CIF listed to play football was April 17. It could be slightly extended.
Football is also in the orange tier, which is two tiers below purple, which Monterey County has been in since July.
There are two other issues for football, according to Bishop.
“Equipment,” Bishop said. “Riddell has said if you don’t have it in by the end of April, you’re not getting it back until August. And CIF doctors are concerned about kids having ample recovery time.”
The average cost to have football equipment inspected and reconditioned is $25,000. With no gate or a shortened season, that might be a cost some schools can’t afford.
Which makes no sense for football to resume any sort of practice in pads until the sport is closer to its tier, as that would force schools to send their equipment in.
At this time, there is no intent to follow what the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League did, in which it created its own seasons within the county for sports to resume.
“We talked about what the SCCAL did,” McCarthy said. “But they are a single county. We still have three counties left. It would be difficult to plan any type of schedule.”
San Benito High and Anzar are in San Benito County, while Gilroy, Oakwood and Christopher are in Santa Clara County.
The SCCAL also moved sports around into three abbreviated seasons, starting with cross country on Feb. 1, with the season ending on March 26.
Stay-at-home orders have to be lifted first, though, for competition to resume. The SCCAL did move football and volleyball into its second season, which would start on March 1 and end on April 23.
Both those sports are in the orange tier. Santa Cruz County remains in the purple tier, although it was in orange briefly last fall.
Other second season sports in the SCCAL will include boys and girls track and field, boys and girls swimming, girls golf and girls tennis. The league is forfeiting any potential postseason.
The SCCAL will also add seven PCAL schools for just this semester because all seven are in Santa Cruz County.
“We released all seven schools,” McCarthy said. “We just felt kids might have a better chance to have a season in a certain sport in their own county.”
While the expectation is a handful of sports will resume at some point, how they’ll be contested will likely look different.
You’re not going to see 100 kids line up at a starting line in masks for a cross country meet. And track meets may be held on Saturday, to spread the meet and athletes apart.
“You can’t have five teams chasing each other in cross country,” Bishop said. “I could see staggered meets, where you just run with your team and compare times. Nothing is going to look the same. And with seasons shrinking, how many schools will be able to go out and field teams?”