WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – The Greater Wichita Athletic League (GWAL) is making some tweaks to their schedule for fall sports.

On Tuesday, USD 259 Athletic Director J. Means said they would move to an city league only schedule this season.

In all, that would impact all nine schools in the GWAL.

“We limit our exposure to just the schools that we would compete with here in the league,” said Means.

First year Wichita West head football coach Adam Rosenstiel found out about the decision Tuesday night. He says he just wants to be able to take the field this season.

“I’m more concerned about playing, I mean, we got a lot of kids who have next level dreams, next level hopes,” said Rosenstiel.

When it came to making this decsion, Means says they were looking for not just the best route to go, but also the most safe.

“As we talked, the talks kind of evolved around just playing each other so we’re not traveling all four corners of the state, along with, we don’t know what other school districts are going to do,” said Means.

While the schedule would keep all fall sports teams here in kind of a makeshift bubble, the plan is far from concrete.

The USD 259 Board of Education is set to meet on Thursday and expected to make a decision on whether the district could go to fully remote learning. If that is the case, that could nix the fall sports season altogether.

“If it goes fully remote, we are probably having that conversation that we don’t have athletics,” said Means.

While still hopeful that won’t be the case, Means feels there is still a place for sports, even in the uncertain times revolving around the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I could make an argument that we need athletics even more if we go all remote,” said Means.

A sentiment echoed by Rosenstiel.

“My biggest thing is sports is an avenue for these kids to do something positive with their life and if we take that away, that’s one less thing they have to that we can guide them to,” said Rosenstiel.

Means tells KSN a preliminary plan per fall sport as below:

Football: Worst case scenario (seven regular season games). Means says they’ve built a nine week regular season schedule in case their are no playoffs

Soccer: 16 games, double round robin schedule

Volleyball: 16 duels, possible pool play