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Regardless of what the Maine Principals’ Association decides on Thursday, the fate of fall sports in Maine won’t be determined yet.
The MPA’s Interscholastic Management Committee is meeting Thursday afternoon to vote on the recommendation of the Sports Medicine Committee to play all sports, including contact sports such as soccer and football, this fall during the pandemic.
But the state would then have to review the MPA’s decisions before fall sports could receive the go-ahead to continue.
MPA Executive Director Mike Burnham said his association received a letter Wednesday evening from the office of Gov. Janet Mills “regarding the development of school-based guidelines.”
John Suttie, the RSU 23 superintendent and Old Orchard Beach High principal, said it was the understanding of the superintendents that “the MPA will submit these recommendations to the Governor’s office for consideration by the (Department of Education), Department of Health and Human Services), (Department of Economic and Community Development) and CDC.”
The governor’s office did not immediately return a request Thursday seeking comment for this story.
“School athletics are not exempt from the governor’s underlying requirements during the pandemic” said Jeanne Lambrew, commissioner of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, during the Maine CDC briefing on Thursday afternoon.
Lambrew said state DHHS officials had just received the recommendations from the MPA, and it will take time to go through them. She didn’t give a timetable on when the state will make a final decision.
“We will certainly provide the Maine Principals’ Association with our views including on whether not (certain sports are) complaint with our underlying policies and raising other questions and concerns we have,” Lambrew said.
Previously, state officials have said the final decision on high school sports rest with the MPA.
Burnham said the MPA received two other letters Wednesday night following the Sports Medicine Committee’s recommendations. One was from the Maine School Board Association – “Stating their opposition to offering sports,” said Burnham – and the other from the Maine School Superintendents Association – “Stating their concerns with moving forward with these activities,” he said.
The fall sports season, delayed already, is set to begin with practices on Sept. 8.
“Today is not the end game,” Thornton Academy Athletic Director Gary Stevens said of Thursday’s MPA vote. “It’s a critical inning, but we haven’t gotten to the closer yet.”
Stevens added that even if fall sports gets the go-ahead, the decision will be made locally.
“Once the decision made, then individual school systems can react to the decision and determine whether they want to participate,” he said.
Maine isn’t the only state wrestling with the reopening of high school sports. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolfe “strongly recommended” suspending all youth sports until Jan. 1, but the state’s high school association this week gave the go-ahead for fall sports. In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear gave high school sports the go-ahead, but the Kentucky Board of Education will meet Friday to reconsider the plan to play. And in Connecticut, the state’s high school association announced plans to move forward with fall sports, even as the state Department of Health recommended deferring football and indoor volleyball to another season.
This story will be updated.
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