While many states around the nation canceled high school fall sports season — or pushed them back to the spring — officials here waited.
Today, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference announced its plan. There will still be a fall season for public school sports. But it won’t look completely the same.
First practice dates remain the same (August 17 for football, August 27 for cross country, field hockey, boys and girls soccer, girls swimming and girls volleyball). Howcwee, there’s a progression, beginning with conditioning in cohorts of small groups.
That conditioning will gradually increase. Start dates for the regular season have been pushed back; the number of games has decreased, and “tournament experiences (format TBD)” have replaced state tournament.
Schools will now compete on a “regional” basis (based on the 10 closest schools), rather than by league, to mitigate potential spread and maximize contact tracing capability.
Each school will determine spectator policies — in other words, whether to allow fans or not.
There is much more in the document. And of course, CIAC administrators say, the plan is “fluid and in a perpetual state of evaluation.”
To read the full CIAC plan, click here.
Last year, the Staples boys soccer team shocked 3-time defending state champion Glastonbury in the state tournament. There may be no state tournaments for any fall teams, in any sports, this year. (Photo/Patrick Ostbye)
Lots of motions and meetings and scheduling hoops and debate…a waste of time trying to outmaneuver a biological hazard. Look at what just happened at that Georgia summer camp…back to school in 2021 at some point hopefully and preparation should be all on distance learning and perfecting the awesome system so many hard working teachers had to construct on the fly. Bravo to them and the kids and parents that all responded so stoically to this once in a century (hopefully) event.
Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle said “Sports are like the reward for a functioning society” when asked about baseball coming back during COVID. We all want sports, but we really haven’t done what’s necessary to make that a reality. Even CT which has done a relatively good job versus other places in the US is still far behind the places that have successfully restarted their sports schedules.
Imagine! SPORTS will proceed more or less as usual but school opening will not…who’s priorities are f….. up here? Neither should happen.