With the lingering risk of contracting and further spreading COVID-19, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) had announced on July 20 that the start of fall sports will be postponed until, at the earliest, the end of this year.
School sports are an essential piece towards encouraging school spirit and enhancing the social aspect of education. Though with social distancing guidelines in place, the continuation of fall sports into this next school year were heavily debated upon. CIF addressed this situation and announced their solution through their online state media release.
“Our calendar reflects the season for each CIF sport and the last date for Section Championships and Regional/State Championships in those sports where a Regional/State Championship is currently offered,” they reported. “Following this announcement, each CIF Section Office will release their own calendar to reflect regular season starting and ending dates and Section playoffs. It is anticipated that most Section start dates will commence in December 2020 or January 2021.”
With fall sports beginning near the same time as spring sports, student athletes who play both seasons would have had to choose between their two commitments. This issue was also noted by the CIF with the temporary extension of Bylaws 501.F and 501.G, allowing “CIF Sections … [to] extend their summer period up until the first date of their Fall regular season sports calendar” to accommodate spring sports.
In addition, the change for students to “be allowed to participate on an outside team at the same time they participate on their high school team” was also made in accordance with the delayed start of fall sports.
Following these changes, multiple student athletes shared their mixed opinions on the matter. With 47% of our Instagram pollers voting they believed this was a thoughtful, viable solution with the restrictions in mind, students expressed their differing beliefs about the change to the sports calendar.
“I don’t have much to say except for that I’m grateful that, as of now, the CIF is still anticipating sports for high schoolers,” said rising Senior Jacob Ayestaran. “I’m still bitter about my ideal senior year being taken away from me.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be having sports at all this upcoming year, so any solution allowing sports to continue is one that I would be more than happy to take,” said fellow rising Senior Hannah Morris.
“[I like how] instead of cancelling the sports, they are giving us a chance to have a solution,” said rising Junior Trinity D’Andrade. “ … There isn’t much you can do especially with the little information we have.”
She continued to describe the challenges she sees Bruins facing as the sports season draws closer.
“I think football season is going to be especially hard because of the rain,” she said.
Morris also commented on her own thoughts.
“The season will most likely have much worse weather, and our practices will start off shorter because of how soon it gets … colder compared to when we usually start in October or November, so it will be a very different adjustment.”
— Jamey Slater contributed to this report.
