Waiting again: CIF cuts playoffs from season one as COVID-19 cases surge
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
High school sports will have to wait a while longer. As was the case in July, when the California Interscholastic Federation announced that sports would be condensed down to a two-season model due to a surge in coronavirus cases.
Another issue is a fact that the State of California hasn’t issued its planned new guidance on youth sports, which included the CIF.
“Due to the continued surge in COVID-19 infections, the California Department of Public Health has postponed the issuance of its updated youth sports guidance,” the CIF said in a press release. “The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) does not expect the CDPH will issue any guidance allowing for schools to return to full practice and competition until after January 1, 2021, at the earliest. Thus, all full practice and competition start dates are officially on hold until updated guidance is issued.”
“I know that many of you are frustrated with the lack of guidance up to this point, we as a section and statewide as Commissioners are also very frustrated with the same thing,” said CIF North Coast Section Commissioner Pat Cruickshank in a letter to member schools. “The CIF’s continued efforts to work with our State has, unfortunately, produced no updated guidelines on their part. As a result, the CIF has decided to cancel their Regional Championships for Season 1 so as to give sections another week of play.”
However, one of the biggest changes will now come from season one, which is fall sports. Those sports — including football — will now not have any regional or state championships to play for meaning a team can only win their section title and not a state title. Practices for football were scheduled to begin on December 7th, with games beginning on January 8th. To read about the CIF’s original plan from July 20th, go here.
“As a section, we will continue to wait on updated guidelines from CDPH. While I do not anticipate any guidance from them until after the holidays, if we receive anything we will communicate that immediately,” Cruickshank added in his letter. “When we have those guidelines we will move accordingly to begin season 1. In the meantime, come December 7th schools may continue to do what counties allow currently but may not start practice under those current guidelines. We have also targeted January 19th as a date to alert our schools about a decision to either continue with Section Championships or give those weeks back to our leagues to extend league play.”
“Therefore, to provide the 10 CIF Sections, our 1,605 member schools, and more than 800,000 student-athletes the best opportunity to compete in Season 1 Sports, once allowed by the CDPH and local county offices of public health, the CIF State Office is removing all Regional and State Championship events from the Season 1 Sports calendar,” the news release added. “By canceling Regional and State Championship events, more student-athletes will have the opportunity to participate in a longer season, rather than a truncated season with Regional and State post-season play for a limited number of schools.”
This news comes just a few days after student-athletes, coaches, and parents rallied at the state capitol in Sacramento for the ‘Let Us Play cause’.
While the delay in restarting high school sports seems to make sense given the surge in cases in Napa County, California, and the United States, there are also some reasons as to why it doesn’t. In Napa, schools are holding in-person classes and practices with protocols taking place. In Wisconsin, a study was done and it showed that high school sports didn’t increase the transmission of COVID-19. That study can be found here.
This also comes as vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer file for emergency authorization from the FDA to get them all over the country.
No matter how you look at it, whenever high school sports restart, we are going to be in for one of the weirdest looking seasons. Without a doubt, things will look different.
