Chapel Hill, North Carolina – North Carolina High School Athletic Association Commissioner Que Tucker said the association is doing its best to make sure fall sports happen in North Carolina, but a lot of things must fit in for that to happen. happen.
Will there be a sports season this fall?
“Well, that’s the $ 64,000 question everyone wants to know the answer to,” Tucker said in a live interview on WRAL, his first interview since NCHSAA postponed the start of the fall sports season until at least September 1st.
The NCHSAA Board of Directors chose to postpone the start of the season until after the school year begins, something that several administrators have told HighSchoolOT they hoped would happen so they can focus on starting the academic year safely. It also gives NCHSAA more time to gather information from its members to determine the best way forward.
“I’m still cautiously optimistic that we can watch soccer (and other fall sports). When that date is … I can’t say tonight,” said Tucker. “We are going to do everything we can safely do to have soccer, but also to have those other sports, and we are making plans to try to do it as safely as possible.”
Every state association in the country faces the same concerns. Some have already begun looking for options for moving fall sports to the end of the school year, possibly condensing the three seasons to be completed in 2021.
When the NCHSAA suspended spring sports, it avoided canceling the season until it had no choice but to postpone the restart date multiple times. The NCHSAA is likely to take a similar approach to fall sports.
“(If fall sports can’t resume), we will continue to push it until we run out of space and then have to look for the second half,” said Tucker.
NCHSAA allowed schools the option to resume limited summer training on June 15, provided their school districts approved it. Those trainings have been governed by Phase 1 of the NCHSAA plan to resume sports and include strict guidelines to mitigate the risk of spreading Covid-19.
Among the guidelines, all students and staff must be examined daily for symptoms and temperature control, the number of people in a training is limited, students must train in the same groups each day, the Non-contact social distancing can occur, equipment and water bottles cannot be shared, and players cannot pass balls to each other.
The NCHSAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee has met to discuss the way forward with Phase 2 and Phase 3, however, no details have yet been given on the next steps.
Tucker said Thursday night that the NCHSAA is not ready to move forward with a new phase.
“Right now, we are in that phase where we are trying to figure out what our schools are going to do in relation to openness,” said Tucker. “I can assure you that as soon as we speak to our Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, we will receive further instructions from our board, and then we will know what our schools are going to do; then we would like to increase it as much as we can so that we have the opportunity to let the Kids now touch the ball and pass the ball, instead of just one player being able to touch the ball, for example. “
Tucker admits there are far more questions than answers right now. She called it “frustrating” for athletes, especially older adults who could risk losing their senior seasons.
“I learned from my parents a long time ago that you can only control what you can control and, of course, what I hope we can do is provide some kind of opportunity, either this fall or after Christmas in January, February, when whatever it is, “said Tucker. “I am concerned with what that date will be, but I am also concerned not only with soccer players but also with tennis players. I am concerned with basketball players, swimmers, all of them.”
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