Collias: It’s time to come together and find solutions

It was just over a week ago that we learned, for certain, that it would be at least a year’s time that Maui Interscholastic League sports would be dormant.

Now, as we search for answers, some things are becoming more and more clear.

Let’s start with this: People care deeply about this conundrum on every side of the issue, from the school administrators who wrestled with this decision for months, to the parents and relatives of student-athletes, to the student-athletes themselves.

Now, it is time to come together, find some solutions and remember we are fighting an invisible and unrelenting foe in COVID-19.

Jamie Yap, the Maui High School principal who has acted as the MIL spokesperson through all of this, said “the focus for us right now is getting the spring sports started in a way that hopefully — hopefully when the superintendent allows it to happen — that we can work things out for the low-risk and moderaterisk (sports). Hopefully when we get to that place maybe even the highrisk sports would be allowed.”

The MIL is one of two leagues in the state that includes both public and private schools, which complicates the whole plan when it comes to getting back to sports.

The private schools here have been on campus since August, while now even the Feb. 1 date for the return to mostly on-campus learning in public schools is in serious jeopardy with the growing COVID case numbers in recent weeks.

“I want to commend the league in its nature of private and public schools and that the dialogue stayed focused on being united as a league,” Yap said of last week’s MIL meeting that determined the cancellations. “That’s very commendable because private schools could have easily said, ‘We’re going to start our own league and we’re going to break off and do what we like.’ By saying that, the league kept the students in mind and kept the focus on the students.

“Collectively the private and public schools are working together and that’s a big statement.”

Maui Preparatory Academy athletic director Keenan Reader said his school is happy to be part of the MIL.

“As a private school we value the partnership between our public and private sectors,” Reader said. “Unfortunately although it comes with some hardships, it’s part of being committed to the league and we believe that partnership is what’s best for kids on the island of Maui. It just stinks that this happens to be during COVID and it’s not working for us now, but this is going to be over soon. That partnership was the top priority for us.”

With the writing on the wall for some time that fall and winter sports were not going to happen, Reader started working on a club basketball tournament for the MPA’s brand-new gymnasium, the Bozich Center, to host in about a month. It is just one of numerous club sports options to arise recently, across the island, from track and cross country, to soccer, to baseball, to flag rugby.