High school football this fall? Not in D.C., Montgomery County and elsewhere

While some professional sports leagues are heading into “bubble” environments to restart their games and athletes are being quarantined for as many as 14 days to ensure they don’t have COVID-19, those options aren’t feasible at the high school level.

Governing bodies around the U.S. are trying to figure out the best way forward for high school sports as the coronavirus pandemic continues to linger. Locally, that’s led to some tough but necessary decisions.

Montgomery County in Maryland became the latest local jurisdiction to make big changes to high school sports plans on Tuesday. The public school system announced all classes would be virtual-only through Jan. 29, 2021 — which included the cancellation of not only fall sports but the winter season, as well.

It follows neighboring Prince George’s County, where the school system also called off fall sports last week when it was announced classes will only be held online through at least January.

The D.C. State Athletic Association (DCSAA), which governs high school athletics in the District, announced its decision last week to move the fall sports season into 2021, between the winter and spring seasons.

For District high schools, that means practices for football, boys’ and girls’ soccer and volleyball can’t start until Feb. 1. The season will be played Feb. 22 to April 16, concluding with one week for conference playoffs and one week for state-level playoffs.

The Virginia High School League (VHSL) executive committee will decide how to manage the upcoming sports calendar on Monday, when it votes among three options — none of which call for football to be played in its traditional autumn window between August and December.

The options are to keep all sports in their usual seasons, but cancel fall contact sports like football; swap the fall and spring sports schedules; or squeeze the fall season between winter and spring, with the earliest date for games being March 1.

At the state level, Maryland has not followed suit in delaying seasons — at least not yet. The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association (MPSSAA) released its return-to-play “road map” earlier this month, which said in part that fall sports like football can begin holding practices Aug. 12.

Reports said MPSSAA officials are still considering contingency plans, including moving the fall sports season back. An MPSSAA official could not be reached for this story by deadline.

DCSAA director Clark Ray said he hopes for a more regional approach as time goes on. He pointed out that parts of western Maryland, for example, might have better COVID-19 data than Maryland counties that border the District like Montgomery.

A regional approach may also help solve issues within private school conferences like the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference, which has member schools located in the District, Maryland and Virginia.

“That certainly would improve the competition, I think, for all of our student-athletes across the DMV,” Ray said.

All private, public charter and traditional public schools in the District are DCSAA members. Ray said their original proposal called for 10-week seasons, but athletic directors asked for eight-week seasons instead to better accommodate students who played multiple sports.

The first sports practices in District high schools can begin Dec. 14 for winter sports like basketball and indoor track and field. Officials hope that by then, the pandemic will be less widespread in the region.

“I think a lot of folks are grateful that we have included an athletics plan going forward, and hopefully, given the science and the data, come December it’s either going to support us playing or we’re going to know for sure that we need to be shut down,” Ray said.

Some of the largest states in the country pushed back their fall seasons this week. California’s governing body announced Monday that high school sports could not start until December or January, modifying its calendar to the same winter-fall-spring model that the District will use.

Texas, famed for its high school football, bumped the start of football season for Class 6A and 5A schools back to Sept. 24. Their state championship games will now be played in January.

Decisions are clearly complicated by the more overarching matter of whether schools will open on time in the fall. President Trump has called for a timely school opening, threatening to cut federal funding for public schools that don’t comply.

But some local school districts are making different plans, as illustrated by Montgomery’s announcement Tuesday. The county north of the District was previously considering a phased return through the fall that would start with distance learning. (cut the other sentence originally in this paragraph)

In the District, the preliminary plan is to give families the choice between having students take all their fall classes virtually or doing a hybrid plan combining in-person and remote classes. But Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back the official announcement to July 31 after seeing what she called “concerning” COVID-19 data last week.

In any case, many local schools will see few if any students physically present on campus for the first few months — so conducting athletic practices and games would be much harder.

Ray said he will be in contact with the mayor’s office and the D.C. Department of Health on a weekly basis.

“We’re only going to be able to do what the science and the data and the mayor and the Department of Health say we can do,” Ray said.