CHAPEL HILL — The North Carolina High School Athletic Association held a special Zoom press conference Wednesday to inform media members that there were no major announcements forthcoming.
With sports fans, student-athletes and coaches on edge to see whether or not interscholastic sports will be played this fall, commissioner Que Tucker fell back on Gov. Roy Cooper to address everyone’s concerns.
“We do know that Gov. (Roy) Cooper has delayed his announcement about the 2020-2021 school year and what will happen with students,” Tucker said. “We know times are tough, but we believe academics come first and that athletics are an extension of that.
“Everyone wants to know if the Friday Night Lights will be on this year, and I can’t tell you at this time,” she said plainly. “Unless Gov. Cooper feels like there will be in-person learning, it’s hard to imagine students playing sports. It would be unsafe.”
There are 421 member schools that make up the NCHSAA, and technically all of them are cleared to resume summer workouts and practices. But Tucker reiterated that local educational agencies are the ones to allow or not allow said activities to begin.
As first reported by the Richmond Observer last week, Richmond County Schools officials indefinitely suspended all in-person practices and workouts despite being allowed. The NCHSAA lifted its dead period on June 15.
“At that time, our Board of Directors and SMAC committee felt that conditions warranted allowing students to resume play, so we lifted the dead period,” Tucker said of the lift. “But the rules of the NCHSAA allow for schools to be more restrictive, and many are exercising that option.
“The general public is anxious, and we do not know when sports will resume,” she continued. “But we promise to offer students the opportunity to get on the field to play the games they love as soon as we can.”
Like Gov. Cooper and school districts across the state, the NCHSAA is preparing for three different scenarios this fall:
- Plan A: schools return to normal schedule with some social distancing
- Plan B: schools return to half capacity schedule and use alternating day schedule
- Plan C: schools do not return and students will learn remotely like this past spring
“The NCHSAA is making tweaks to all of these plans, but until we know THE plan for how schools will reopen, we’ll continue to work behind the scenes to choose the best path forward,” Tucker said.
“We must allow the Gov. to govern, and give health and school officials the opportunity to make decisions in the best interest of the students.”
Of the three options, Tucker said Plan B is “most concerning” in terms of scheduling, but that Plan C would almost guarantee no sports.
One idea that Tucker shut down was acknowledging football coaches across the state to lobby to have the season pushed back to the spring. She said that is not the case and threw out the idea that there are other coaches, such as baseball and softball coaches, to think about when making that type of decision.
“We don’t have a date to try and flip sports,” Tucker said. “If we allow that line of reasoning, we already have some schools working out and many that are not. If we flip flop, we need to know which sports we are changing and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
The two highest risk sports during the fall sports season are football and soccer because they have the most physical contact. Tucker said while she understands the significance of both sports, it would be difficult to try and move other programs around to meet their needs
But the bottom line for her and the NCHSAA is that “we want to play, whether it’s a month, a month and a half, or just a conference schedule — we want to have high school sports.”
Richmond Observer contributor Deon Cranford posed a question to Tucker about crowd sizes. Her response was that she hopes Gov. Cooper will allow at least 50 percent capacity to all sporting venues.
That led to the issue of gate sales, which Tucker said “having no source of regular income for the regular season is problematic.” She added that feedback from member schools will be required to make the best decision possible.
Concerns of fair practice time and some schools getting an edge on others came up, and Tucker reassured media members that when a time and date is selected to safely resume athletics, “ample time will be given for everyone to get back on the same page and have the same advantage.”
The NCHSAA sent out a survey to all of its member schools earlier this week asking if student-athletes and coaches had returned to practice. Over 70 surveys were returned within a day, and 53 percent of those said they had returned, with 36 percent said they had not but have plans to do so soon.
A total of four student-athlete COVID-19 cases have been reported to the NCHSAA, but Tucker said the virus was not contracted from sports-related activities.
This is a developing story and the Richmond Observer will add updates as they’re made available.
