High school athletes have patiently waited for the announcement by the San Diego Section California Interscholastic Federation (CIF-SDS) which was released December 1 detailing the future of sports this school year.
CIF-SDS Commissioner Joe Heinz said in his official memo, “The decision was made to postpone the start of all Season one sports until the point in which updated guidance has been released by then State of California.” Heinz continued, “The State CIF Office does not expect that California’s Public Health Department will issue any guidance allowing for schools to return to full practice and competition until after January 1, 2021, at the earliest.”
The Los Angeles Times released an article featuring a chart created by the California Public Health Department detailing which sports will be allowed to resume activities depending on the tier of COVID-19 cases each county has. Purple tier counties may allow outdoor low-contact sports, red tier counties may allow moderate-contact outdoor sports, orange tier counties may allow outdoor high-contact sports and indoor low-contact sports, and yellow tier counties will allow for all sports to resume play (latimes.com).
This new update comes after the decision was made that high school sports could possibly resume in mid-December, before cases continued to rise in California, and the State of California was placed under a stay-at-home order (cifstate.org).
The State CIF Office is still hopeful that sports will make a return this school year and to aid their hope, they have cancelled all scheduled Regional and State Championship events in order to allow for greater schedule flexibility when teams can compete once again (cifstate.org).
According to KUSI News, the State CIF Office decided to move back the planned start of Boys Volleyball to season two from season one. A new and updated calendar will be released in January which along with the possible announcement from the California Public Health Department should illustrate a clearer picture of what sports will look like (kusi.com).
Indoor sports face slimmer chances of returning, due to the fact that people in a building together are much more likely to contract COVID-19 than people outside if an infected person was to appear at an event. According to the Washington Post, this has driven some regions to prevent people from exercising indoors at all (washingtonpost.com).
As a student-athlete, Senior Wesley Clarkson has been impacted by the announcement. Clarkson shared, “I have been working very hard in preparation for my senior season of sports, and although I know that everyone’s health and safety are a priority, it is unfortunate that we may not have a season. I know a lot of other student-athletes feel the same way.”
Clarkson continued, “Students’ senior year is a culmination of their whole schooling career up until that point and for many of us, sports have played a huge role in that. It is a shame that we can not reap the reward of our hard work.”
According to a high school sports statistics website, other states, such as Alabama and Nebraska have allowed for sports to be played (maxpreps.com). However, the large population and high COVID-19 case count in California has prevented officials from making any decisions.