JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The clock is ticking on the start of the high school sports season and the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic is forcing the Florida High School Athletic Association to confront scenarios that it’s never had to address before.
Will fall practice start on time on July 27? Are games this fall going to be played in front of fans or at all? Has the FHSAA considered scrapping state championships or thought about pushing fall sports to another spot on the calendar? What about the rankings system used to determine who goes to the playoffs?
During the organization’s Fall Sports Task Force meeting on Tuesday, the organization came to no definitive conclusions on much due to the ever-changing pandemic. Executive director George Tomyn said that the organization was holding steady on starting the season on time but did say that it was too early to make decisions on a number of topics.
But several points were driven home during the meeting that lasted a little more than two hours, a big one by Duval County district athletic director Tammie Talley. Schools need to hear from the FHSAA, even if dates or protocols change during the pandemic, during an unprecedented time.
Talley suggested a survey to member schools to get input on moving forward and the committee agreed to set that in motion. The next meeting is scheduled for July 1.
The FHSAA has been painstakingly slow in getting information out to its schools, often deferring to individual districts or the state in regard to coronavirus and athletic plans. Several members made it clear on Tuesday that method was no longer satisfactory for athletic officials who desperately need guidance.
While that’s understandable due to the nature of the virus, those schools still expect to have the state’s governing body of high school sports offer some type of voice to the fight. That has been absent. The FHSAA’s last public statement on the pandemic came on April 20.
“We’re just looking for some communication. We’re looking for something that schools and districts can have a plan for, whatever their plan is,” Talley said.
“Whether like [FHSAA board of directors president-elect] Mrs. [Lauren] Otero said, it’s Plan ABC or XYZ, because there are other models out there that our state could look at and have something that we could address, whether it’s starting after Labor Day, whether it’s not having the Kickoff Classic and maybe having an eight-game season. Something like that, other than just we’re going to start on July 27 and having no Plan A or Plan B. And it can just be a recommendation. It doesn’t have to be anything that’s set in stone.”
The FHSAA calendar has July 27 as a start date for fall sports practice, although the feasibility of that was brought up with not all of the state’s 67 districts on equal footing in the pandemic recovery process. While the area’s 11 districts in the News4Jax Florida coverage area have returned to workouts, others in Florida have not.
Park Vista athletic director Pam Romero said that her district in Palm Beach County had initially set a return to workouts on July 6. That date has now been moved to later in July. And if districts in the state are starting that late, while others have been going as early as June 1, how does that affect fairness?
Tomyn did address several topics about flexibility, saying that the FHSAA would be prepared to exercise grace as it pertained to scheduling and playoffs. If schools had to back out of a game due to safety precautions and the coronavirus, the FHSAA would not punish those schools. He said that the remainder of fall sports with the exceptions of football and volleyball, could safely be held with enhanced safety measures.
Tomyn also said that the possibility of much different state championships this year was an option.
“I’m going to tread on some real thin ice here and talk about the state series and the state championships. And I’m not so sure that we’re going to be able to have that this year in the traditional format that we’ve had in the past,” Tomyn said.