CIF prepares for return of sports during a pandemic
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section is sticking to its revised high school sports schedule that begins in December. But that doesn’t necessarily mean every school will be starting their sports at that time.
“Riverside County went from purple to red, so now that meant they could open up nail salons or they could do whatever else is involved, but what does that mean to us, what does that mean to the girls volleyball team and the water polo team and the football team,” said Rob Wigod, CIF Southern Section Commissioner.
That’s the question that the CIF is working to answer for the schools and school districts that ultimately have to make the decisions on when and to what extent high school sports can return.
“We’ve developed a plan with our sports medicine advisory committee to have those colors for each county tier actually match up with what you can and cannot do as it relates to high school sports, so what kind of practices, competitions, what kind of protocols will you need to follow,” Wigod said.
Palm Springs Unified School District provided News Channel 3 the following statement:
“We are currently developing our plan for return of small cohorts of students for both academics and athletics conditioning.”
Coachella Valley and Desert Sands Unified School Districts are also still working on their plans over the coming weeks.
As a private school, Xavier Prep’s football team has been able to start small group conditioning on campus.
((Jarvis Crawford - Xavier Prep Football Player))
“I actually like it very much, seeing my old teammates back again, socially distanced, you know Coach is always on our head about it, but it’s always good to see our old teammates, go back to our old conditions and go back to what we used to do,” said Xavier Prep football player Jarvis Crawford.
Other local football programs hope to be able to do the same by the end of the month. Wigod said it’s ok that teams start up at different times as long as there is enough time to play a league schedule.
“There’s not going to be a horn blowing and 100 percent all-clear sign at the same time with 560 high schools,” he said.
If, during the season, teams have positive cases of coronavirus, it will be up to the schools and school districts to determine how to proceed.
“There isn’t going to be any punishment or sanction against any school, school district, private school, who makes the decision to not have their student athletes play, that’s their decision to make, and they shouldn’t be in a situation, where by making that decision, they somehow suffer a penalty or there’s a forfeiture applied or there’s some kind of negative aspect of that,” Wigod said.
