OHSAA: Aug. 1 start preferred
All options remain on the table, but the Ohio High School Athletic Association is moving forward with plans to begin fall sports as scheduled on Aug. 1.
A little more than a week after being elevated to the role of interim executive director of the OHSAA, Bob Goldring frequently repeated during a Tuesday conference call that while the organization will ultimately take cues from the governor’s office, it believes it will follow the lead of many nearby states and proceed as planned with fall sports.
Like most other aspects of society, the status of high school sports has been in flux since March, when the coronavirus pandemic first made its presence felt in the United States. In Ohio, the state tournaments for wrestling and boys and girls basketball were canceled, and spring sports followed within weeks.
“It’s a fluid situation,” Goldring said. “(As of Tuesday), we’re planning to go full-bore ahead with our practices Aug. 1, with the notion our seasons would follow with the normal scheduled dates.”
There are plenty of variables to consider, many of which, Goldring pointed out, are out of his jurisdiction.
Guidelines for each school district will be decided on a local level, as will reactions to positive virus tests that may impact whether or not students will be in classrooms or on athletic fields. Those decisions may include whether to even hold fall sports, he said.
Contingency plans for possible cancellations are being discussed, Goldring said, but he declined to offer specifics.
Moving football and other sports to the spring is a possibility, he said, but doing so creates other problems, including imposing hardships on multisport athletes. Without a domed stadium within the state to host state championship games, Goldring said delaying the start of football season too much would not be viable.
“I think it’s fair to say that we’re open to all suggestions and all possibilities,” he said. “(People) are all over the board with ideas. Some people even think, not surprisingly, we’re crazy to even consider starting sports, whereas a lot of people say, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’”
To that end, an anonymous group of central Ohio high school football
coaches created a proposal to move the sport to the spring. The suggestion, which was given to the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association within the past week, went no further, as Beau Rugg, the football administrator for the OHSAA, declined to bring the proposal before its board of directors.
The OHSFCA released a statement Sunday saying that it makes proposals to the OHSAA about football, and that it will have “a seat at the table” if or when decisions need to be made about adjusting the season.
The plan included football practices beginning Feb. 1, scrimmages following two weeks later, a six-week season and then a seven-week postseason. Every team would qualify, and the state finals would take place May 20-22.
Spring football “is not our priority right now, but that’s not to say we wouldn’t consider that if plans are derailed,” Goldring said. “Then we would pivot to look hard at our other options.”
There is much to navigate, and Goldring said he’s of two minds on the situation. After talking to other administrators and colleagues across the region, Goldring said he’s confident from a professional standpoint that there will be a fall sports season.
Then there’s the other viewpoint. “As a human being and a husband and a father and reading the news and what’s going on with spiked cases, being open and honest, I’m nervous about what’s going on,” he said. “But on the other hand, our medical experts seem to be saying the risk is not as high for our younger population, so we have to trust that.”
Reporting from Thisweek Newspapers was used in this story. ajardy@dispatch.com @Adamjardy