As schools, businesses and communities begin to make preparations for this fall, high school sports are doing the same thing. On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) Board of Directors will meet to discuss potential plans for what to do about the Fall 2020 sports season.
The Board of Directors will discuss a number of scenarios as it awaits guidance from the state on what specific regulations need to be in place in order for high school sporting events to be held.
Over the past eight weeks, the MIAA’s COVID-19 Task Force has met weekly in an effort to come up with a “return to play” proposal to bring to the Board of Directors. The task force is expected to propose to the Board of Directors on Tuesday that the start of the fall season be delayed until September 14.
While the Board of Directors does not have to take the Task Force’s proposal and will vote on anything that is presented, Board of Directors president and Marshfield superintendent Jeff Granatino expects the rest of the board to take anything the Task Force recommends into serious consideration.
But no matter what the Board of Directors decides at Tuesday’s meeting, the MIAA is still awaiting guidance from the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) or Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) as to what sports will be safe enough to play at the high school level. Those two departments, particularly the EEA, have been the leading decision-makers in deciding what youth and adult amateur sports have been allowed to return to play already under the latest guidelines in Phase 3 of Massachusetts’ reopening plan.
Tuesday of last week, the two departments met along with the Department of Public Health, epidemiologists and other high-ranking officials in Gov. Charlie Baker’s office to discuss the prospects of fall sports. Also attending the meetings were six members of the MIAA’s COVID-19 Task Force — including MIAA COVID-19 Task Force co-chair and Duxbury athletic director Thom Holdgate, Task Force co-chair and St. John’s Prep principal Keith Crowley and Boston Public Schools athletic director Avery Esdaile.
The members from the MIAA will be there to provide input on how certain sports could safely be conducted, but they will not play any role in deciding which sports the state allows to play. That decision would be up to the state, the EEA and the DESE.
If the state were to follow the current youth sport guidelines released on July 6 as part of Phase 3, high school sports like soccer, football and competitive cheer would not be allowed to compete as they fall into the “high-risk” category. Other fall sports — such as golf (low risk), volleyball (moderate risk), field hockey (moderate risk) and cross country (moderate risk) — would be allowed to hold practices and games under the current Phase 3 guidelines.
A separate committee of the Task Force was formed last week to discuss potential options in the event individual fall sports or all fall sports are deemed unsafe to play. Those alternative plans are not expected to be discussed at the upcoming Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday.