MSHSL just voted to move volleyball and football to March-May but allowing soccer to be played in fall.
Football in northern Minnesota in March on grass fields? NOPE 👎!
I might need to join a fall golf league or learn to hunt. I last shot a gun when I was about 12...I’m 51 now. Anybody want to teach me? 🦌, 🦆, 🐻
There doesn’t seem to be much thought put into this plan. You can practice all you want, but not play in games in the fall? Somehow they believe the circumstances will change in the short window until March, making everything magically safer? There will be choices kids have to make between Jr Olympic volleyball vs HS Volleyball, Legion / Club Baseball vs Hs Baseball, club softball vs HS Softball. For kids with college aspirations the club route is the most likely choice. Injuries will be abundant with seasons literally on top of each other and two football seasons within a few months of each other. And as you said Faunch, there is no way football fields will be ready. Turf fields will be frozen and grass fields will be a mess and destroyed.
Not much the High School League does makes sense, but this one takes the cake. The High School Baseball Coaches Association instantly denounced it. An Athletic Director from a large west metro school that I know just told me it will not work logistically, and that they did not vet it with their members.
I have followed this pretty closely. I listened to the Board meeting yesterday.
First off, the MSHSL backed themselves into a corner on this issue. It really only started planning for the fall about two weeks ago, and the task force in charge did not make a recommendation to the board of directors even today. In many ways, the meeting yesterday was a $hit show-- tie votes, votes for reconsideration, last minute Title IX questions-- just not an organization that showed a ton of leadership. They did not seriously consider swapping seasons because they started far too late to do so. You cannot tell a whole state worth of baseball and softball coaches to get ready for a season starting in two weeks right now-- you have to line up umpires, transportation, and facilities on very short notice inside of a MDE pandemic restraint. It would have been a nightmare. In fairness, you have a pandemic which is changing the situation weekly, but instead of being ahead of the game and having tons of contingency plans in place, they essentially were hoping the Governor would bail them out.
Second, the interim season bought the MSHSL a chance to save football for the year. There simply are too many safety considerations to consider in the two weeks until practice was supposed to start. And starting the season for some three weeks into the schoolyear is not a realistic plan either-- when the inevitable outbreak happens-- and it will happen, as it did this summer at a number of schools-- once schools open, that would shut down the season for those sports pretty quickly because the number of athletes involved on a football team. A spring season is a chance, but not a guarantee.
Third, it will not be a free-for-all come fall. A number of northern schools advocated for the allowance of fall practices, which was intended to be a connection period for communities who have not been able to connect with their kids meaningfully since last February. But there is certainly an equity component, as a number of schools won't be able to practice at all because of local COVID regulations, and other schools that may not sponsor soccer which would love to practice 5 days a week. It was represented that the MSHSL eligibility committee would provide regulations on this, and I would expect them to limit those practices to maybe 6-8 over the two month period. Keep in mind that track and baseball also have the ability to practice this fall, and the stated desire was to ensure kids did not have to choose which one to go to.
Club sports are a different model than the MSHSL. The MSHSL's mission is educational in nature. Club sports have different missions and they are often not charitable. Kids will make their choices-- some are going to neighboring states already, for example. But what is to stop clubs from playing through the traditional HS season as it is now?
By the way, the MDE guidelines currently prohibit visitors into a school, so you won't see club volleyball/soccer using school facilities until that changes. That will require a club to have its own facilities to continue operating-- if they do not, they will need to adjust also.
As to fields, I seem to remember a recent St. Patrick's Day where it was 80 degrees-- and another where it was a high of about 35. Without fans in attendance you can play on a practice field-- and if you are only playing 2-3 games at home (depending on what the schedule looks like), the damage to the facility is minor. We have played in Novembers where the field is frozen too, and it doesn't repair much in December and January, but April damage should be repaired by August when the next season rolls around (since the MSHSL also noted that the traditional summer waiver period be cut for football/volleyball).
It is a crappy situation all around, and the MSHSL didn't help itself here. But there is method to its madness.
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