Sports activities to return June 15
NMAA issues guidelines for summer training, including 5-to-1 player-to-coach ratio
The kids can get back to work. The New Mexico Activities Association on Thursday approved a measure that will allow schools to commence with summer activities as early as June 15. The association’s board of directors voted 8-4 in favor of slowly reintroducing interscholastic sports for the first time since mid-March, when the COVID-19 epidemic forced the NMAA to shut down all sports and hold the last three days of the state basketball tournament without fans.
It does come with restrictions, however. As part of the guidelines for a Phase 1 reopening, schools must adhere to a strict 5-to-1 player-to-coach ratio with a minimum distance of 6 feet between each person. Teams can manage workouts in pods of six or fewer people, but no more than three pods can occupy the same indoor facility at any time. Outdoor sports are limited to five pods.
Teams cannot use weight rooms, and competitions such as games or scrimmages are prohibited, as are camps on campus or out of town.
Face coverings are not required during workouts but must be worn before and after leaving the designated facility. Everyone must be screened prior to daily workouts for symptoms of COVID-19, and anyone with a temperature higher than 100.3 will be sent home.
NMAA Executive Director Sally Marquez said that more pronounced measures to increase activities depends largely on how the state responds to guidelines set forth by the June 15 reopening.
“What we do with these guidelines is going to determine what’s going to happen in the future,” she said. “If we go crazy and it doesn’t work, and we’re not sanitizing and we’re not doing what we’re supposed to, then this could have a big effect on what’s going to happen in July and August.”
The NMAA surveyed athletic directors around the state prior to Thursday’s meeting, asking them to vote on what date they supported to restart summer activities. The majority chose June 15 over June 29 and July 6.
Marquez stressed that schools are not required to open on the approved date. When — and if — they decide to commence summer activities will be handled by each individual school district.
“I just want to state for the record that I think it’s critically important that we try to get kids back into the athletic and activity mode as quickly as we possibly can, as safely as we can,” said board President T.J. Parks, the superintendent of Hobbs Municipal Schools. “We have a large number of kids in the state of New Mexico, and I would venture to say across the United States, that extracurricular activities is one of the most important things in their lives, and if we don’t offer extracurricular activities to some of these kids, we’re going to see a tremendous dropout rate.”
Not everyone agreed. Board members Anthony Casados, superintendent of Chama Valley Schools; Travis Dempsey superintendent of Gadsden
Independent School District; and Las Cruces Superintendent Karen Trujillo and athletic director Ernie Viramontes all voted against the measure.
Casados questioned schools’ ability to enforce basic safety guidelines that call for restrictions such as not sharing athletic equipment and requiring, among other things, coaches to sanitize gear after each use.
“The reality of this is if you put these kids in a gym, you give them all a basketball and you tell them not to pass and you have all these strict guidelines, I don’t believe they’re going to follow them,” Casados said.
Marquez said she has been in contact with state associations that border New Mexico and said Texas has plans to phase in its opening June 8. Arizona is starting with a 10-to-1 ratio along the same timeline as New Mexico, while Colorado is leaving the procedures up to each individual school district.
For now, she said, the plan is to resume activities with the highest level of safety protocols in place.
Marquez also addressed the financial impact of the health crisis, saying the NMAA has taken a net loss of $650,000 after the cancellation of all spring sports and the state spirit competition in The Pit, plus staging the final three days of the basketball tournament with no fans.
She said the NMAA received a check from the University of New Mexico for $40,000 for the five days the tournament was held.
“Usually we receive a check for maybe $300,000-$350,000 from UNM in those five days at state basketball,” Marquez said. “We’re very happy [Thursday] morning to know we’re not cutting them back a check.”
She said half of the NMAA’s annual budget is based on gate receipts, with 30 percent coming from membership dues and the rest from corporate sponsorships. The association’s biggest draw every year is state basketball, with the spirit competition coming in third behind the football playoffs.
She said the NMAA’s corporate partnerships remain strong despite the pandemic’s hit to the economy. The association is partnered with the same multimedia entity as UNM, Outfront Media. The agreement actively recruits marketing and sales opportunities that generate revenue for the NMAA.
“Our corporate sponsor with Outfront has been extremely, extremely good in these trying times,” Marquez said. “That is one contract that I am very confident in.”
The board also voted to accept a proposal that will allow student-athletes to use physicals from the previous school year for the 2020-21 sports calendar because, Marquez said, it is becoming increasingly difficult for parents to get appointments for a basic physical.
The board also discussed the process for awarding bids to public courses for the state golf tournaments, with Marquez pushing for a plan to centralize all three tournaments in the Albuquerque metro area as a means to minimize travel and cut expenses.
The board also addressed possible changes to the seeding and selection process for the state basketball tournament, as well as referee assignments for small-school basketball games and a proposal to push the Class 2A state football championship game to the same weekend as 3A, 4A and 5A. No action was taken on those discussions.