Fall season tentatively delayed to Sept. 21

While several college conferences have nixed the possibility of sports in 2020, including the Ivy League, Empire 8 and SUNYAC, the state is still holding out hope for high school sports in the fall. Last weekend, the New York State Public High School Athletics Association (NYSPHSAA) made the decision to tentatively delay the start of the fall season to Sept. 21 rather than the end of August while also canceling the fall regional and state championships.

Of course, no decision has been made quite yet regarding whether school will be in-person when the school year begins. As we learned last spring, the NYSPHSAA will not hold interscholastic athletic competition without in-person school understandably. NYSPHSAA Executive Director Dr. Robert Zayas explained the date that was selected.

“When [school districts] are designing and attempting to implement a reopening plan, I think it’s most fair to our school districts to say, let’s go ahead and hit the pause button,” Zayas said. “Let’s give schools the opportunity to figure out how they’re going to provide for the education of student athletes. Then, at approximately two to three weeks after the school year starts, … we’ll slowly implement an athletic season.”

The organization is preparing itself for any scenario with the announcement of the delay. If the season is unable to begin on Sept. 21, the state will transition to a plan that will condense all three athletic seasons into the 2021 portion of the school year. There is overlap between each of the three seasons, which drew the ire of parents of multi-sport athletes, so Zayas explained that it’s a work in progress.

“We would be lying to ourselves if we said that that’s the plan that we’re going to stick with should something happen with the fall sports season,” Zayas said. “But I think it’s a starting point. It’s an opportunity for us to build off of one of the major criticisms that I saw yesterday on social media was the overlap in seasons. We most certainly could go from 10-week seasons to eight- or nine-week seasons.”

One option that was floated around online was to move non-contact sports to the fall and contact sports to the spring to increase the likelihood of athletics in the fall. Unfortunately, that was not logistically possible.

“It’s really unfair for us to put school districts on hold and say, ‘we don’t know right now if you’re going to need to offer baseball, softball, other low-risk sports in the fall.’” Zayas said. “There are so many things that need to go into planning a baseball softball season for the fall. I’ve heard from school districts that we don’t even have a coach yet for our baseball team hired or we don’t have a school-board-approved softball coach.”

New York has many regions that have been affected differently by COVID-19. Tompkins County is certainly on the low end of the spectrum with just over 200 cases and no deaths since the pandemic began earlier this year. However, Zayas was not going to make any regional exceptions when it comes to athletics.

“We’re looking at this from a statewide perspective,” Zayas said. “When you’re talking about implementing a high school athletic season, it’s not going to be possible to say we’re just going to be able to play the other school that’s in our own community and expect that to be a season that’s going to be beneficial for the student athletes who are participating. The guidance from the Department of Health did not differentiate when they spoke about interscholastic athletics being on hold. That was not regionally based.”

Things may seem grim now, but Zayas wants to assure people that all options will be considered before an outright cancellation of athletics for the upcoming school year.

“I am optimistic [that there will be athletics],” Zayas said. “I realize what’s at stake and I’m doing everything I can. [I’m] working with section executive directors, working with school administrators, working with our Department of Health, State Education Department and the governor’s office to find a way. If there is a way, I can guarantee you, we’re going to find a way to be able to provide seasons for every student-athlete.”

Zayas is understanding of the plight of current student-athletes, especially seniors, who are uncertain of the status of the upcoming season. He addressed them with a reassuring statement.

“My message to those student-athletes is we have to remain positive,” Zayas said. “We have to realize that when we participate in athletics, we’re going to be faced with that adversity. What we learn from dealing with adversity truly helps us deal with other issues later on in life. I’m a big believer that high school sports do not prepare you for the next level of competition; they prepare you for the next level of your life.”

This year has been full of adversity, and high school sports would serve as a huge return to normalcy. However, with the risks involved currently, patience is the only answer.