If school sports return this fall, team water bottles will not. (David Stern photo)
No players sitting on benches.
No handshakes or fist bumps, before, during, or after games.
No endless soccer introductions with each player, starter or reserve, running out onto the field.
Some schools needing to use multiple buses to transport teams to games, with athletes and coaches spaced out between seats, wearing face masks, with bus windows open.
And that’s the positive version of where prep sports in Washington state could be this fall.
In the negative version, there simply are no games played whatsoever, a remix of what happened this spring as the world deals with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
While Island County recently entered Phase 3 of Governor Jay Inslee’s four-part plan to reopen the state, Washington is one of 23 states currently experiencing a rise in coronavirus cases.
The hardest-hit area in our state is Yakima County, which is home to many prep sports state championship events.
As it looks ahead to late August/early September, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has stated it “intends to conduct all scheduled fall athletics/activities that are approved by the Department of Health.”
That includes operating at less than full capacity, if need be.
“Although not ideal, the WIAA intends to conduct a regular season and/or championships even if all schools are not able to participate,” the governing group said in an earlier release.
But then, we jump to today, and the WIAA issued its most-detailed guidelines yet for how state schools, public and private, should handle spring and summer practices, and competitions, if they return in the fall.
Included is the statement “when a school, schools, or district are closed due to COVID-19, all training, practice, and contests for the school(s) or district should also be canceled.”
These new guidelines cover a general approach, as well as offer specific advice for all but one of the fall sports normally played by Coupeville athletes.
Football, volleyball, cross country, soccer, and cheer are represented, but no individual guidelines were issued for tennis.
Also included are guidelines for swim/dive, dance/drill, and slowpitch softball, which some schools traditionally play in the fall.
CHS plays fastpitch softball, which operates in the spring.
Instead of writing 10,000 words about the guidelines, I’ll offer you links for ones which affect Coupeville, so you can pick and choose what you want to investigate.
As you do, keep in mind, everything is in flux, and no one knows where we will be in 2-3 months time.
That point is driven home by the WIAA not including the answer to one major question in Monday’s guidelines — when will “high risk” sports be allowed to play games?
“Lower risk” sports such as cross country can resume competitions in Phase 3, and “moderate risk” sports such as basketball and volleyball can play in Phase 4.
But “high risk” sports, those which “involve close, sustained contact between participants, lack of significant protective barriers, and high probability that respiratory particles will be transmitted between participants,” have no start date yet for games.
That covers football, wrestling, and competitive cheer.
The website SB Live Washington quoted WIAA spokesperson Casey Johnson in its report.
“We’re still waiting for some more information,” Johnson said. “Right now, obviously no counties are in phase four. It’s one of those things specifically that we’re going to wait and see how things develop before addressing.”
Fall Guidelines Overview:
Click to access COVID19Guidance.pdf
Cheer:
Click to access Cheerleading.pdf
Cross Country:
Click to access CrossCountry.pdf
Football:
Click to access Football.pdf
Soccer:
Click to access Soccer.pdf
Volleyball:
Click to access Volleyball.pdf
