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Despite fears from some that a decision to cancel fall sports in the Big Ten Conference would trigger the same move for high school sports, a Michigan High School Athletic Association official said plans for a season are in still in place.
For now.
Amid unsubstantiated rumors that the MHSAA would cancel or postpone football within 24 hours of the Big Ten’s announcement, the organization said nothing has changed: The MHSAA still intends on making a decision on competition for football, volleyball and boys soccer by Thursday, Aug. 20.
“Those decisions at the college level, they definitely become part of the conversation as we move forward, but they don’t necessarily change it,” MHSAA media and content coordinator Geoff Kimmerly told MLive Tuesday afternoon.
The Big Ten announced Tuesday afternoon that it was canceling fall sports because of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to multiple reports, the Pac-12 is doing the same.
That follows Saturday’s news that the Mid-American Conference was scrapping fall sports as well.
“I wouldn’t expect (any announcements) in the next 24 hours at least. I mean, (the Big Ten announcement) came out today and we’ve been talking with the governor’s office a lot, trying to work things out at our level for certain things, the volleyball and swimming thing being included. We’re going to have things we still have to figure out,” Kimmerly said.
High school football practice officially started Monday across the state. Helmets are allowed this week with full pads permitted starting next Monday, Aug. 17.
A decision on competition for football, volleyball and boys soccer is expected by Thursday, Aug. 20.
On Wednesday, practices for the other fall high school sports are allowed to commence, but they must be conducted outdoors in all parts of the state except the northern areas, Regions 6 and 8. Other fall sports include volleyball, boys soccer, girls swimming and diving, boys and girls cross country, girls golf and boys tennis.
Sports venues in Regions 6 and 8 are allowed up to 500 people indoors as long as individuals follow social distancing guidelines. For most fall sports, being outdoors is commonplace; but for traditional indoor sports volleyball and swimming, they require some creativity to get practices underway throughout most of the Michigan.
“We’ve heard that volleyball teams are talking about putting the nets outside. Swimming, maybe (moving) to country clubs that have pools. I’ve heard about people swimming in the lakes – I don’t know if that’s accurate or not,” Kimmerly said.
“Our coaches regardless are being creative and they’re trying to get things going. Everybody’s expected to begin tomorrow and hopefully we get some news on getting to move inside with those sports here soon.”
Kimmerly said that the MHSAA has maintained all along that the high school level is different from the collegiate level. He notes that high school teams travel far less than college squads and that there is not nearly the amount of high school teams mixing with squads from communities that are far away from each other as is seen at the collegiate level.
On Monday, Kimmerly told MLive that the MHSAA will not necessarily follow suit with moves made at the collegiate level. But, of course, the landscape continues to change – case in point, the Big Ten making it official Tuesday that it was canceling fall sports with the hope of playing in the spring.
Political pressure on the MHSAA following suit with the Big Ten and MAC is another layer in this saga.
“We’re already hearing it. You see things on social media all the time, the last few days especially, about how if the colleges aren’t going to play, how can the high schools play?” Kimmerly said. “I don’t want to call it pressure, but certainly there’s some optics there, some expectation … and part of what we’re doing is explaining why we’re different, but at the same time part of what we’re doing is also considering how we’re the same (as college).
“We’re going to make the best decisions that are safety-based also. As we look toward where we’re headed here, in the next eight days when we said we’d have that decision by, we’re going to certainly consider what the colleges are doing as we start really honing in on a decision.”
If the MHSAA were to cancel football or postpone it to the spring, other sports could still be played, according to Kimmerly.
The MHSAA’s goal remains: Getting in as many sports as possible.
“It’s very possible that we are able to move forward with the lower-risk sports and we said at that time, if that’s the case and if decision-making doesn’t dictate that it’s safe enough to do the moderate- or higher-risk sports, it could wait until the spring instead in kind of a late-winter, early-spring season, that’s still on the table,” Kimmerly said.
“I think we would really, really like to get some sports in this fall to bring some of that normalcy and that community back to our high schoolers and if we can’t get them all in, then we will try to get them all in later in the school year. But, at this point, we haven’t changed anything.”
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