FHSAA board should delay football’s return
Hold off on kickoff. That would be my advice to the embattled Florida High School Athletic Association and its board of directors, who meet again Friday with a spotlight dangling overhead. I say to burn one more timeout before football games even start.
Maybe consider letting bowling, cross country, golf and swimming start up the fall sports season with the current prescribed practice date of Aug. 24, or shortly after that.
Maybe.
Possibly permit girls volleyball as well.
But keep football, with its stuffy, crowded locker rooms, elbow-to-elbow bus rides and almost inevitable bear-hugs and huddles, on the sideline for at least another month.
I cherish the fresh smell of Friday night football in the fall, especially after we get past the stormy stretch. But I just can’t see how games in September with 40 or 50 players on each sideline and a crowd in the bleachers can happen if one of the goals is to provide the utmost safety for players, coaches, officials and fans while we all sit squarely in the midst of this maddening coronavirus season.
Maybe some of the numbers are overblown, but we know that a lot of high school football teams have had COVID-19 cases or concerns among players in summer workouts. That’s a fact.
So consider moving season openers back a month to, say, Oct. 9 and hope that COVID-19 concerns drop. Play a max of eight regularseason games instead of 10. Then have a condensed four-week playoff series ending with Dec. 17-19 championship games.
Teams that don’t qualify for the playoffs could add another game or two to their schedules to round out a nine- or 10-game season and give players a complete experience with all the camaraderie, structure and discipline high school sports provide.
At least one area football coach is on board.
“Maybe we should start in October,” Lake Brantley head coach David Delfiacco said, without any prompting by yours truly, as 50-something
COMMENTARY of his players were wrapping up a two-hour Tuesday workout under conditions that call for temperature checks, social distancing and careful cleansing of all weight-room equipment.
“That would give us a little more time to see how things are going. Hopefully, by that time you could put more fans in the stands.”
Delfiacco touched on something that is of high concern.
It’s not all about the money, but it’s impossible not to consider the reality that football gate receipts bankroll most high school and college athletic budgets. If schools have to play games with limited capacity to meet COVID-19 protocol, they may not be able to pay the bills.
Wouldn’t it be a better to back things up and make the setting safer (hopefully) while boosting ticket sales and enhancing the excitement with bigger crowds?
A wild-card concept surfaced this week when Leon County school superintendent Rocky Hanna floated a plan to flip-flop seasons as a means of moving football and girls volleyball, both designated as “high risk” sports, to a safer time frame.
Those squads, along with cross country runners, would shift to the spring season in a plan Hanna discussed with nine or 10 other Panhandle superintendents Monday. Baseball, softball and track and field would move to the fall as outdoor sports that would more easily be played with social-distancing measures in place.
My survey of area high school football coaches shows I’m not in the majority on this idea of making their sport wait.
Out of 28 head coaches who responded, 22 favor the FHSAA “Option 1” proposal, which calls for Aug. 24 practices, Sept. 11 games and 10 weeks of regular-season play with no open weeks built in. That option would place every team that signs up, regardless of record, in state tournaments that would span six weeks and end the weekend of Dec. 17-19.
“Let’s start and see what happens,” South Lake football coach Mark Woolum said. “Trying to delay is like trying to predict the future.”
New Faith Christian coach Dave Carrington said players are voting with their attendance at ongoing offseason workouts, which were approved starting in June.
“A few parents have decided to pull their kids in response to the virus,” Carrington said. “We respect and support them in their choice. Many parents and players want to play.”
To that point, a “Let Them Play in Florida” online petition addressing the FHSAA launched Monday and had been signed by more than 30,700 by mid-afternoon on Wednesday. It demands that the association stick with Aug. 24 for the start of preseason practices.
The agenda for Friday’s board meeting, posted Wednesday afternoon at fhsaa.org, states that the FHSAA’s executive director, George Tomyn, will recommend approval of that date. It falls in line with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his call for football sooner rather than later.
The FHSAA’s Sports Medicine Advisory Council has prepared a much different outline for Friday’s 10 a.m. meeting at the Best Western Gateway Grand hotel in Gainesville. SMAC again asks that preseason practices (and games) be pushed back to allow experts time to gather and evaluate COVID-19 data through a time when schools have been open for face-to-face education for 14 to 21 days. Their report said that as of Aug. 10 only four of the state’s 67 counties had opened schools.
Schools in smaller North Florida towns are begging to begin, and that might make sense where COVID-19 numbers are low. But for Florida’s population centers, I think it’s way too early.
We don’t know what is going to happen when thousands of students pile back onto campuses. Let’s wait and see before some of those kids dive head-first into tackling each other.