After facing massive backlash, FHSAA finally delays the start of fall sports seasons
Following days of backlash about its decision to start fall sports practices as scheduled Monday, the Florida High School Athletic Association is finally pushing back the start of high school sports seasons. Practices for fall sports will now wait until August to begin.
After nearly three hours of meeting, the FHSAA’s Board of Directors voted 11-4 to delay the start of fall seasons at an emergency meeting Thursday, just three days after the same Board voted 10-5 to keep the fall sports calendar intact and allow schools to begin practicing Monday. The nearly five-hour Monday meeting, however, was disorganized and immediately led to widespread frustration across Florida, not just with the decision, but also with how the decision was made.
Now practices won’t be allowed to begin until at least Aug. 24 and the regular seasons likely won’t begin until at least two weeks later in September. The Board will reconvene in person by Aug. 17 to update any policies ahead of the start of practice. Schools can continue their summer conditioning programs until practices begin. The Board did not update timelines for the state series postseasons as part of the plan.
At the August meeting, the FHSAA plans to come with a plan for how to play the fall sports seasons with an updated timeline. The Board also tabled discussions regarding other recommendations made by the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee (SMAC) to be addressed at the upcoming August meeting.
Virtually every decision made by the Board on Monday frustrated coaches and administrators across South Florida. Medical advice from the SMAC — including mandatory temperature checks, a uniform COVID-19 questionnaire, and the delay of football and girls’ volleyball seasons “until further notice” — was entirely ignored while the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage across the Miami metropolitan area. The decision not to delay the season at all triggered widespread worry schools in Miami-Dade County and Broward County wouldn’t realistically be able to compete for state championships a year after the two combined to win 7 of 8 in football. The Board even forgot to read public comments and emails before voting on the fall calendar.
“It just seemed unprepared,” Palmetto football coach Mike Manasco said.
Originally, the Board planned to reconvene Friday to further discuss SMAC’s safety recommendations, particularly the questionnaire and temperature checks. After school districts across Florida threatened to pull out of the FHSAA over the Board’s decision, the Board pushed its meeting up a day to Thursday.
The Miami metro area schools have been the face of the statewide backlash. During the meeting Monday, Board member Mark Schusterman, the athletic director at Riviera Prep, said football teams in the area are concerned they might not get on the field until November, which would effectively keep them from competing for state titles, given the FHSAA’s eight-game minimum to qualify for the postseason. On Wednesday, Miami-Dade County Public Schools board vice chair Dr. Steve Gallon III announced he plans to propose the county withdraw from the FHSAA. Lake City Columbia football coach Brian Allen told the Lake City Reporter football championships would be “tainted” if Miami area schools weren’t competing.
“We have heard from the FHSAA loud and clear,” Gallon said in a statement. “They now need to hear from us.”
The same day, the FHSAA decided to move its Board meeting up to Thursday, nominally to discuss the SMAC report, but the meeting ultimately came to focus on the fall calendar, at large.
The Board spent the first two hours of the meeting discussing the SMAC recommendations after Chris Patricca, a school board member in Lee County, proposed those as the guidelines the FHSAA would follow when setting the calendar. This would have prevented football and girls’ volleyball from starting until counties reported an average positive percentage of 5 percent or lower across a 28-day period. Ultimately, the proposal didn’t gather significant support and Patricca withdrew her proposal as the Board focused on a shorter one-month delay to August.
When the Board meets again in August, the timeline will come into focus. The Board’s decision will push back the start of the regular season, but it still has to determine how much it’ll be pushed and whether a delayed start to the season would mean a shortened regular season, or pushing back the postseason until later in the fall or winter.
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 7:59 PM.
