Despite the ‘unknown,’ Florida high school fall sports still planning to start on time
As it stands right now, the Florida High School Athletic Association doesn’t plan to change its start dates for the 2020 fall sports season even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep through the state.
That means a July 27 start date, preseason play for Aug. 12-15, and regular-season openers for football and other fall sports pegged for the week of Aug. 20.
“The governor [Ron DeSantis] and commissioner of education [Richard Corcoran] are very optimistic about schools opening as scheduled in the fall,” FHSAA executive director George Tomyn said Tuesday on a virtual meeting with a newly developed fall sports task force. “I’m also remaining optimistic. At this moment in time, our staff is counting on a fall sports schedule that has already been published.”
Decisions can change depending on the continued spread of the virus — the state reported 5,508 cases on Wednesday and now has a total of 109,014 confirmed cases — but Tomyn said as of right now, the FHSAA has no Plan B in place even though multiple discussions have taken place “and we are prepared to discuss them as they come upon us.”
The FHSAA sanctions six sports in the fall: football, girls’ volleyball, bowling, cross-country, golf, and swimming and diving.
Volleyball and football will require the most discussion for safely returning to action.
“We intend to start things as is calendarized,” Tomyn said. “That could change this afternoon at four o’clock, and that could change this afternoon or tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock. We know that’s the biggest issue that we have. ... It’s the unknown, not knowing exactly what the case may be or what tomorrow may bring.”
And that could put South Florida at a disadvantage to start the season. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties have not been cleared to start preseason conditioning programs like other parts of the state, and there is uncertainty that the area will be cleared to start practices late next month like the rest of the state.
“Here in Miami-Dade, just as in Broward and Palm Beach, we’re still not able to get into our buildings,” Hialeah Gardens athletic director Carlos Ochoa said. “It looks very unlikely we’ll be able to start on time.”
Broward County athletic director Rocky Gillis added: “We want to make sure that if we can’t start when everyone else gets to start that we won’t be penalized and we have the option of coming up with ideas of regionalized play. We might not be able to travel out of the tri-county area. If we’re starting after Labor Day or not until the end of September, we want to know that we’ll have the support of creating an environment that is going to be safe for our athletes to participate.”
Tomyn said the FHSAA is not going to penalize schools that are put at a disadvantage with scheduling.
“We’re going to work with you,” he said.
He also added that, while a last resort, the FHSAA fall state series could potentially be eliminated in favor of regional playoffs if the situation dictates that happening. The FHSAA canceled the state series for spring sports back in April, marking the first time it had ever done so.
“We’ve discussed a lot of those things,” Tomyn said. “I just think it’s way too premature to talk about something like that. We can be creative when we get to that point.”
When discussion came to the possibility of pushing fall sports back, Tomyn responded, “Moving fall [sports] impacts the winter which in turn impacts the spring. That’s why we’re very comfortable in staying exactly where we are right now.”
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 12:34 PM with the headline "Despite the ‘unknown,’ Florida high school fall sports still planning to start on time."
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