It has been reported that CIF along with all 10 Section Commissioners will be meeting July 20 to determine if and when Fall Sports are going to happen. They will possibly be some sports that will not be played while others will go on. Also to be discussed will be crowd attendance and other logistics on how to operate for the coming school year seasons. We will have a better picture on July 20
CIF ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT FALL SPORTS
- Thread starter shcguy92
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This is a tough one because every county (heck, every city) is having a different experience with the virus. In a gigantic state like California (similar to a separate country with 40 million people), one size definitely does not fit all. And those 10 CIF commissioners are not health experts on every county (or city) in the state. Not even close.
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They realize that and I don't think they would want to own that liability. They will put it on the school districts to ultimately make those final decisions.
It is the right call for each district to take the lead. However, in terms of sports, what level of buy in does CIF need to have an "offical season"? If only a small percentage are ready to go, I could see an exhibition tour of sorts without the playoffs.
I wonder if the CIF would consider creating a temporary "sub" sectional organization to keep travel (and virus spread) to a minimum. They could eliminate the State and Regional level games for a season or so, but still have full regular seasons and local post-seasons. In this way, the entire State, and even just large Sections, don't have to be put out of commission by an outbreak hundreds of miles away.
Take the SJS for example. It is geographically large and encompasses multiple residential regions with varying degrees of virus activity. It seems silly to shut down the entire Sacramento region if there is a breakout in Los Banos, and vice versa. If the Section organized itself (temporarily) into smaller regions, restricted all play to teams within the same region, then held a short post-season amongst those teams, at least kids could get 10-13 games. AND if one sub-section has to be shut down due to a hot spot, the others would still be able to continue.
Obviously, this would water down any post season championship significance, but so what? That's better than nothing. Elk Grove Unified has nine high schools alone. The city itself has seen very few cases and almost no deaths. None at all, recently. If those schools only played each other and were named "City Champion" in each sport, that would be something-is-better-than-nothing. Everybody could play everyone during the regular season for a total of eight games, then split the large schools from the small schools and have two post-season tournaments. Other sports could follow a similar model.
This is all contingent upon there being an acceptable level of containment for the virus, adequate testing, and effective tracing/tracking. Those are big IF's, I know.
Interesting article on ESPN.com about Iowa High schools playing summer softball and baseball. Talks about the impacts on coaches, players and the umpires.
If/when football is allowed to resume it could be similar with some schools and districts deciding no to participate while others actively allow and encourage transfers.
https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/i...rst-baseball-softball-return-amid-coronavirus
If/when football is allowed to resume it could be similar with some schools and districts deciding no to participate while others actively allow and encourage transfers.
https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/i...rst-baseball-softball-return-amid-coronavirus
