TROPHY CASE
High School Sports Revisited By Rod Kausen
trophycase@northcoastjournal.com
M
1001 Main St. in Fortuna
707.725.6734
www.eelvalleyappliance.com
26
arch 4 brought more hope to high school sports and to youth and club sports. It also brought a lot of confusion. The California Interscholastic Federation has agreed that all sports, including indoor, could resume immediately under certain conditions. In the Humboldt Del Norte League, soccer games begin today and football games begin this weekend with a five-week schedule. Two students from elite high schools in San Diego backed by the organization Let Them Play CA sued San Diego County, the California Department of Public Health and Gov. Gavin Newsom for the return to youth sports. The judge issued a temporary restraining order against California’s restrictive measures for the return of all youth sports under the guidelines of public health mandates. So, it is full speed ahead for the higher COVID-19 risk sports — sort of. Schedules were quickly set for football and soccer in our local leagues and other sport schedules went back on the drawing board. It appears that softball, track and field, and baseball practice will overlap with the soccer and football seasons, with participating athletes able to begin a new sport once the current sport season has concluded. New guidelines are still being added for each sport because of the lawsuit. In general, they include such things as wearing masks when not competing, no sharing of drinks or personal items, no team meals or parties before or after contests, equipment sanitation and crowd control, including limiting who can attend the contests. The testing guidelines are the hardest hurdle to overcome, and the most confusing. There appears to be an equity issue, as low-income high schools will have a harder time pulling it off than higher-income school districts. The bottom-line is each county’s adjusted case rate (ACR), the number of new cases per day per 100,000 in population. For schools in a county to compete, the rate must be below 14 per 100,000. Many counties are not close. Schools can participate in the higher
NORTH COAST JOURNAL • Thursday, March 18, 2021 • northcoastjournal.com
COVID-19 risk sports but must test weekly, particularly before a contest. If the county rate drops below 7 per 100,000 then no Eureka High School cross country runner Ian Bennett. testing is required. Courtesy of Eureka High School Athletics Humboldt County has hovered around 7 or 8 ACR recently. The weekend scrimmagsports will also extend past many school es Saturday, March 12, did not have to test, graduations. since we had fallen to 6.6 ACR. It appears, The indoor sports of volleyball, basketas of now, that the ACR is the determining ball and wrestling may prove more difficult factor, not the color-coded tier, although to pull off, primarily as the requirements the tier is based on ACR and test-positivfor indoor sports are even tougher to ity rate, as well as the percentage of the follow. The supervision of fans will be a population that has been vaccinated. concern, as will the spacing requirements It is up to each school to determine and venue capacity. Volleyball practice which sports to participate in. The admincan begin this week, but basketball and istrators set a schedule and the schools wrestling have not yet been finalized. decide which teams to sponsor. With the For this week’s games, the league has current guidelines, a student cannot play decided each student/athlete can have up two sports at once, which means smaller to four immediate family members who schools may have to skip one sport to fill live in the same household in attendance. the another’s roster. St. Bernard’s Academy In other words, casual fans or relatives is not fielding a boys soccer team because outside the house are not supposed to soccer and football are to be played conattend. The schools are working hard to currently. Hoopa High School just began stream the events online. practice this week and must complete two The three sports that have completed weeks before playing a league contest. their seasons — boys tennis, girls golf, and As we do not have water sports, boys boys and girls cross country — all came volleyball, lacrosse and some other sports off without glitches under exceptionally that are rather important in other parts good administrative supervision. Still, that of the state, there are fewer scheduling leaves a lot of sports to be scheduled into issues than some schools face. Still, the just a few months and things are bound to athletic directors are the unsung heroes change in the COVID-19 world, given the who must fill in schedules and reschedule, virus’ mutation and people’s impatience to enforce contact tracing protocols, coorget back to normal. dinate with the health department and The old line “we want what’s best for schedule transportation and facility use in the kids” is easy to say and people think it a situation that could change tomorrow. puts them in a good light when they say It appears many leagues and sections it. The point really is to give the players a have not been pleased with the California chance to play some sports and compete Interscholastic Federation when it comes since they have missed out on so much. In to disseminating information. this situation, it should be about them not Problems may continue to plague the about your opinion on attendance or on schedule. Already, this weekend’s football mask regulations. Please cooperate with games have been altered as a Del Norte the schools and follow the guidelines. High School player has tested positive For schedules and updated results, for COVID-19 and the entire team is in www.HumboldtSports.com is a comprequarantine. Weather is always a concern hensive resource. ● during the spring and there is no time in a shortened season for make up baseball Rod Kausen (he/him) is a retired and softball games. The last season of teacher and coach.
