JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Florida High School Athletic Association will meet on Friday to determine the path for the 2020-21 sports season.
If that decision were up to players, parents and coaches, it would likely be a no-brainer to start sooner rather than later.
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A petition on Change.org was on a roll, gathering more than 17,500 signatures as of 7 p.m. Tuesday night. That was less than a day after it started.
The introduction on the item reads: “Your voice is important and so are the voices of others. We need FHSAA to hear from you and hear from those who have yet to sign. Share this petition multiple times to help it grow. We can do this! #LetThemPlay #WeWantToPlay.”
College athletes across the country took a similar approach over the past week in launching a barrage of social media campaigns to tell their programs that they wanted to play this year. Power 5 conferences, the Big Ten and Pac-12, opted to cancel fall sports on Tuesday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has been drumming up support for high school and college athletics in the state to play this season. At an event at Florida State University on Tuesday, DeSantis said “we think that Aug. 24 is the way to go.”
The FHSAA board of directors voted initially last month to go ahead with an on-time start of practicing on July 27. In a second emergency board of directors vote just three days later, it voted to push back the start of practices until Aug. 24.
“We are asking all of you to join us in making our voices known to FHSAA that we want a fall sports season and we want it to start on August 24th as planned!,” the petition said.