Pressure grows on NMAA to make call on fall sports
Trending online protest to ‘let them play’ comes as clock begins to run out on scheduling games for spring
United by the online rallying cry of “let them play,” proponents of high school athletics are pumping up the volume on a call to return kids to the playing field.
The effort began trending on social media platforms over the weekend and continued gaining traction Monday.
Frustrated by state health orders that have stopped sports during the coronavirus pandemic, supporters of the online push urged Facebook users to temporarily change their profile pictures to a backdrop of the state flag with “Let Them Play” stamped as a hashtag across the front.
Taos High School football coach Art Abreu Jr. took the plunge. He said the time has come for political leaders to make a decision.
“And that’s easy for me to say because I’ve already had my day as an athlete,” he said. “If the people who need to be the adults about this and make that tough decision, we’ll either have a season or we won’t. If not, we got to be prepared to graduate, we got to be prepared to head off to college.
“It’s not easy. Some of these kids have trained their whole life since [youth football]. For the seniors, it’s getting time to let it go. But someone needs to
make that decision, because it’s not ours to make.”
The New Mexico Activities Association, the state’s governing body for interscholastic athletics, has marked Feb. 1 as the start date for football and Feb. 15 for cross-country and volleyball.
Soccer, basketball, wrestling, swimming and cheerleading would all begin in March, with the traditional spring sports of baseball, softball, track, tennis and golf starting April 5.
But as NMAA Executive Director Sally Marquez has repeatedly pointed out, sports cannot start without the authorization of the Governor’s Office and state health officials.
Marquez told her board of directors last month football has been pushed back as far as possible, adding further delays would force the NMAA to begin canceling sports one at a time — starting with football and other fall sports.
Marquez could not be reached for comment Monday.
The hashtag “Let Them Play” has become a rallying cry for anxious parents and coaches watching the potential for cancellations. The NMAA has scheduled a videoconference with football coaches Tuesday morning, and an NMAA spokesman said Monday that Marquez hopes to have an announcement about the sport’s future this week.
Coaches are hoping for the best. “We’re ready to go,” said St. Michael’s football coach Joey Fernandez. “Our kids, they’ve just been excited — excited every day to be out doing something.”
State health guidelines restrict gatherings of more than five people. Schools have used a loophole that allows one coach to simultaneously lead a pair of four-player pods as long as they stay far enough apart. Weight rooms remain off limits and workouts are largely confined to conditioning drills outside. Contact is prohibited.
Abreu said it could take six weeks to prepare a football team for the grind of what would be a truncated three- or fourgame regular season beginning in March. Fernandez said some coaches could have their teams ready as early as mid-February, leaving open the possibility for an abbreviated schedule that ends with a state playoff that could give teams an additional month’s worth of games.
The NMAA has told coaches it would allow a regular season slate against district rivals, thus minimizing travel and, hopefully, exposure to the virus.
The overriding theme, coaches said, has become the mental well-being of the kids.
“My big thing is, and you hear it from the seniors every day that we’re out there, is we want something to look forward do,” Fernandez said. “We want to play. We can’t go to school, we can’t visit with friends and all that stuff. We just want something to do, that’s the big thing.
“If it’s done safely, I think it can be done, but we’re losing a lot with these kids not being in school and not being able to participate in things. I’m seeing a lot of depression in these kids and people need to know that.”
Abreu said the layoff — and the uncertainty — has put things into perspective.
“If we’ve learned anything with the coronavirus, it’s that sports isn’t a right anymore,” Abreu said. “We’ve found that we’re not entitled to athletics anymore. The lesson to kids now is it’s a privilege to play and we need to start appreciating high school sports like we haven’t before.”