When San Diego Superior Court Judge Earl Maas ruled last week that all high school sports could resume, there was wide celebration — especially from football.
The case was brought by two high school football players but it included all sports, and the judge declared that all sports could resume, provided COVID-19 protocols used by college and professional sports were employed.
There’s the rub for some sports, says CIF-San Diego commissioner Joe Heinz.
As football practice is now going full-bore ahead of scheduled season-openers March 12, Heinz said indoor sports, like volleyball, gymnastics, wrestling and basketball may have a problem moving forward.
“There are a lot of different pieces,” Heinz said. “All sports would have to meet (the college and pro criteria), and it could all go out the window. Using college-type safety plans might have unintended inequity.
“Private schools could probably afford it, but what about public schools?”
Judge Maas issued a temporary restraining order allowing football to start immediately, which everyone has now done. Being an outdoor sport, football is not expected to be as affected as indoor sports.
“We expect to get more clarity when we meet (Friday) for an injunction hearing,” Heinz said. “The TRO expires on March 9, and while the next step is a permanent injunction, we don’t want it to be too restrictive.
“That is the state CIF concern as well. For schools to follow college or professional protocols, there is concern about unintended inequity.”
Concern, for example, might be that while a Mater Dei Catholic or Christian High might have no trouble being able to afford making sure every possible protocol used in college and/or pro sports is applied, would a similar action by say Mar Vista or El Cajon Valley create such a hardship that the ruling couldn’t be applied equally?
Vernon Moore, the Metro Conference president, said the Sweetwater Unified High School District is currently moving forward, offering six outdoor sports while studying the legal ramifications of Judge Maas’ decision and others as they relate to the district.
“The spirit is to get back to conducting sports,” Moore said. “We’re ready to go with all of the outdoor sports.
“For the indoor sports we need to wait and see what will be required. Obviously, colleges and the professionals have more robust testing than is available to high schools. Colleges, they can isolate athletes in dorms — we don’t have that. Pros can afford to test whenever.
“We need to know things like how often we need to test because we’ll have to send athletes to their own health providers or the county health facilities. We don’t have that capability on our campuses.
“This is not a normal year. For example, we’re hoping to have 10 percent of the high school population on campus by early April. Don’t count us out.”
Heinz mirrored that sentiment countywide.
“Clearly, we’re all in favor of getting sports back,” said Heinz, noting that for the most part, every sport has been throttled since mid-March 2020, except for the recent reintroduction of boys and girls cross country and swimming and diving. Tennis and golf are also set to start.
“We need to find a path for indoor sports to start. I don’t think anyone is proposing we stop anything we’ve started (including football). That can’t happen; everyone is against doing that.”
The problem is that volleyball, basketball and wrestling are in the yellow tier of a four-tier state policy. San Diego County still remains in the purple tier — the most restrictive tier. Red is the next tier. Orange and yellow tiers seem to be a ways off.
Baseball, softball and field hockey are major sports in the orange tier, with the tiers being based on numbers of cases per 100,000 for an average seven-day period. The red tier is 14 or fewer; the yellow is seven. If the county gets to seven or fewer cases per 100,000, there will be no further restrictions.
Everyone agrees it might be a while before things are back to normal, but Moore expressed the wish of every district.
“It is our hope things will get better in April, May and June so that in July (starting the next school year) we’re back at 100 percent on campus offering every sport.”
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