An announcement issued by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association board of directors last week may mean the end of the months-long competitive drought high school athletes have been enduring since early spring. On Aug. 19, the board approved preliminary recommendations from the MIAA’s COVID-19 task force to allow some schools to play fall sports this season.
Under the new guidelines, districts holding in-person or hybrid learning and designated as yellow, green, or unshaded based on the Department of Public Health’s metric of average daily cases per 100,000 residents will be allowed to practice and hold intraleague competition in soccer, gymnastics, cross-country, field hockey, volleyball, swim and dive, and golf. Sport- specific guidelines and modifications for safe play are expected to be finalized next week.
The season is set to begin Sept. 18, just under a month later than usual, and will extend until Nov. 20.
Harvard’s status as an unshaded community and its decision to open schools on a hybrid model make the Bromfield School eligible to compete in fall sports. The school’s athletic director, David Boisvert, however, told the Press in an email that a decision has not yet been made. “The situation is very fluid,” he wrote. According to information published on the school website last week, no decision has been made on sports for the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, which will be engaging in a fully remote learning model this fall.
On Tuesday night, the Harvard School Committee voted unanimously to allow remote learners to participate in MIAA sports when and if a season begins.
The MIAA recommendations include a restructuring of the competitive schedule that would add a fourth “floating” season. The floating season would stretch from Feb. 22 to April 25 and would accommodate sports deemed too high-risk to be played during the traditional fall or winter season. These sports would include football, cheerleading, and unified basketball, wherein players with and without an intellectual disability practice and play on the same team. Additionally, schools that had their fall seasons cut short due to the virus may be allowed to play in the floating season.
MIAA-sponsored postseason tournaments are not expected to be held.
How the MIAA created its guidelines
The MIAA’s recommendations for play are based on guidance for youth and adult amateur sports outlined by the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA).
The EEA created a framework for acceptable levels of play that designates sports as lower risk or higher risk and defines four levels of acceptable play based on these designations. Level 1 allows for individual or socially distant group activity, level 2 allows for competitive practices but no interteam activity, level 3 opens up interteam competition, and level 4 gives the nod to tournament style competition in an outdoor setting only.
To qualify for level 3 play, a sport must be able to limit contact or be conducted with increased distance between players. Some modifications will include staggered or distanced start lines and elimination of deliberate close contact such as body checking, tackling, or racing in packs. Sports that require intermittent close contact, such as in the case of a face-off, could be allowed if players wear masks during these instances.
Sports such as football and cheerleading that have been designated as higher risk will be allowed level 2 activity during the traditional fall season. This means they can practice using the EEA’s cohort method, in which a team is divided into cohorts of no more than 10 with no player being a member of more than one cohort. The cohorts must maintain at least 14 feet between each other with no more than 25 total players on a single playing surface. The cohorts can compete against each other only if competition can be held separately, such as in the case of synchronized swimming.
Districts that have been designated as red based on the Department of Public Health’s metric of average daily cases per 100,000 residents and will, consequently, be holding classes in a fully remote fashion will not be able to practice or compete, and can postpone their season until the floating season beginning in February. If a district is not red but has still chosen a fully remote learning model, it may also postpone sports until the floating season, but may participate in the regular season if granted permission from its school committee.
MIAA guidelines will be reevaluated and modifications released prior to the start of each season, based on the most recent health data.
