Football to play Feb. 22 to April 25
Published August 21, 2020
The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s Board of Directors held a virtual meeting on Wednesday morning. The board listened to a presentation from the MIAA COVID-19 Task Force who recommended a revised athletic calendar for the 2020-21 season.
The MIAA made their decisions based on the task force’s recommendations in addition to guidelines from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). The EEA guidelines were released last week while the DESE guidelines were sent to school administrators on Tuesday night.
The MIAA voted to push the start date of the fall season to Sept. 18.
The revised season schedule is: Sept. 18-Nov. 20: fall sports, Nov. 20-Feb. 21: winter sports, Feb. 22-April 25: fall sports II (football, cheer, unified basketball), April 26-July 3: spring sports.
The task force has organized sports that they feel will be safe to play from Sept. 18 to Nov. 20 for the fall season. Those sports include boys’ and girls’ soccer, fall gymnastics, boys’ and girls’ cross country, field hockey, girls’ volleyball, swimming and diving and golf.
Typical fall sports such as football, fall cheerleading and unified basketball are scheduled for Feb. 22 to April 25, but they may be allowed to practice sooner. That decision is up to individual schools.
The task force recommended that schools have the ability to adjust dates with the approval of their District Athletic Committee which would allow flexibility if certain schools can’t play sports right away or have to postpone a season at some point. Also, the board voted to allow out of season coaching from Sept. 18 through July 3 as approved by the school principal.
The board voted to encourage schools to create a fall schedule within leagues or geographic regions.
They also voted to allow student-athletes to participate in all four seasons for the 2020-21 school year.
The board voted that there will be no fall MIAA sponsored tournaments. Districts/leagues can host their own.
All passed votes were unanimous except for the out of season coaching topic which passed 13-7.
Sport committees will be tasked with coming up with the modifications to fit the EEA guidelines.
According to the DESE report, “the MIAA will develop sport-specific modifications to meet the guidance from EEA for issuance prior to the start of each season.”
The EEA guidelines, which applies to K-12 school and other youth sports activities, categorized sports into three levels of COVID-19 transmission risk based on the amount of close contact required or expected with different limitations for each.
The lower risk sports that appear in the task force’s recommended fall schedule include swimming, cross country, gymnastics and golf.
Soccer, field hockey and volleyball are in the moderate risk category which require modifications to get to Levels 2 and 3 which are competitive practices and competitions. The DESE report stated that both low and moderate risk sports can be played in the fall, “provided that the MIAA’s recommended sport-specific modifications meet the standards outlined in the EEA guidance.”
High risk winter and spring sports such as basketball, hockey, wrestling and boys’ lacrosse will continue to be evaluated throughout the year.
Participation for school districts planning on only remote learning will be based on their town or city’s average daily cases per 100,000 resident designation from the Department of Public Health. Districts in municipalities designated as “red” must postpone their entire fall season, including practices, until the floating season of Feb. 22 to April 25. There are currently no Middlesex League schools in any red or yellow designations. Lynn, Saugus, Salem, Revere and Chelsea are some nearby communities that are currently in the red.
The MIAA will develop a timeline for looking at data prior to the start of each season to determine which color-coded designation a district should fall into for the purposes of playing sports.
Middlesex League administrators will meet next week to discuss schedules and modifications for the fall season.