PIAA delays fall sports for 2 weeks
With the clock running out on the offseason, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association called a timeout.
The PIAA board of directors voted 30-2 Friday afternoon to delay the start of the fall sports seasons by two weeks, giving the organization time to review what the consequences would be if fall seasons would be canceled or switched to spring, and to talk with Gov. Tom Wolf about the situation. The PIAA board will reconvene Aug. 21.
Until, then, voluntary offseason workouts can continue, with local approval, in all sports. Mandatory practices are paused for the two-week period and are tentatively set to begin Aug. 24.
Heat acclimatization practices for football teams were to begin Monday.
“We need to have some dialogue. We’ll reach out to the governor’s office,” PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said. “We’re giving our best efforts to advocate for our student-athletes, their families and their communities. We have spoken with staff members in Gov. Wolf’s office. We seem to be going back and forth. We want to meet.”
Lombardi indicated that some fall sports should be easier to start than others
“I don’t see how golf, tennis and cross country don’t get an opportunity,” he said. “That’s part of the discussion. Some sports might be causing some angst for folks but let’s have the discussion over the issues.”
The PIAA’s decision comes less than two weeks after stating it was firmly committed to starting fall sports on time. The PIAA board voted 29-3 on July 29 to approve return-to-play guidelines that provided schools, coaches and officials with directions on how to have competitive sports again during the coronavirus pandemic. Though the PIAA stressed that it was continuing with its plan for falls sports to begin as scheduled, the organization allowed some wiggle room for its districts to use delayed starts and varied scheduling models.
Two days later, the WPIAL went for a delay, opting to push back the start of seasons for all fall sports, including football. The WPIAL football season was trimmed to seven weeks and is to start no earlier than Sept. 10.
Gov. Wolf then said Thursday that high school and youth sports should not be played until January. Wolf made the comment at a news conference on a separate subject, and following up with a news release he described it as a necessary precaution to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“The administration is providing this strong recommendation and not an order or mandate,” Wolf’s news release said. “As with deciding whether students should return to in-person classes, remote learning or a blend of the two this fall, school administrators and locally elected school boards should make decisions on sports.”
Wolf’s recommendation disappointed students, parents and coaches preparing for fall seasons in nine sports. Many of those people contacted PIAA officials Thursday night and Friday morning and urged them not to cancel seasons. Lombardi said the PIAA was “inundated” with 7,500 emails and enough phone calls to shut down the office lines.
Wolf met with officials from the PIAA Thursday afternoon and the latter’s board of directors met Friday. Rumors spread that the PIAA would cancel the fall seasons and delay winter sports until after Jan. 1. That could still happen, as the PIAA and Wolf administration continue to play ping-pong with the subject, neither making a concrete decision.
The WPIAL declined comment on Friday’s decision but scheduled a news conference for Monday morning.
McGuffey athletic director and head football coach Ed Dalton said he’s concerned about players losing valuable full-contact practice time with the later start date.
“They are taking away about 10 practices before the first game. We’re really limited in the number of practices,” he said. “We were looking at 26 practices before the first game, which is right on par with what we used to have. Now, we’re down to 15.
“All sports need preparation, but football needs contact preparation. It’s not natural for kids to just go out there and just blast someone.”