The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA), which governs most high school sports in Wisconsin, has announced an alteration to its plan for high school sports in the fall semester of the 2020-2021 school year.
Practice for lower risk fall sports, like cross country, girls golf, girls swimming, and girls tennis, can begin August 17. Practice for higher-risk sports like football, boys soccer, and boys and girls volleyball, can begin September 7. Districts that opt not to participate in fall athletics will be provided with a spring opportunity, though what that looks like is not entirely clear.
The new schedule was approved by an 8-3 vote of the organization’s board of directors on Thursday after hearing from a number of organizations, including WIAA Sports Medical, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
APPROVED, 8-3:
Practice for lower risk fall sports; Cross Country, Girls Golf, G. Swim & G. Tennis, can begin Aug 17.
Practice for Football, Boys Soccer & Volleyball can begin Sept 7.
If districts opt not to participate, a spring opportunity will be provided. Details TBD.
— WIAA (@wiaawi) July 23, 2020
This amounts to a delay of 1 week (or less) for the lower-risk sports, including swimming, and a 4-to-6-week delay for the higher-risk sports. 11-player football practice was scheduled to begin August 4, while the first day of practice for girls’ swimming was August 11.
The girls’ swimming & diving state championship was originally scheduled for November 13-14.
A vote to consider allowing higher-risk sports to start August 24 failed by a 9-2 vote.
Earlier this week, the Big 8 Conference, which includes 10 schools (11 beginning in 2022) in the Madison area, said that it would not sponsor conference competition in fall sports, nor award conference championships. The Big 8 added, however, that schools were being allowed to make their own decisions about participation and schedule their own schedules.
The Big 8 includes many of the state’s top swimming powers, including last year’s girls’ Division I 3rd-place finishers Sun Prairie. In total, 4 of the top 9 finishers from the 2019 girls’ Division I state swimming & diving meet are in the Big 8 – #3 Sun Prairie, #6 Middleton, #8 Madison West, and #9 Madison Memorial.
Wisconsin, where the reopening plans have been governed not at the state level, but rather via a patchwork of local regulations, has seen an increase of new positive tests, like most states, since mid-June. Over the last 7 days, the state has seen an average of just over 900 new daily cases of the novel coronavirus, which is up from its mid-June bottom of under 300.
OTHER STATES
As the beginning of school years across the country draw nearer, high school state associations are rolling out decisions about fall sports across the country this week.
- California announced on Monday that it would push all of its sports until after the conclusion of the fall semester.
- Florida has announced that it will move forward with its fall sports seasons, which includes swimming & diving, as planned. Many schools and districts have balked, with some, like swimming power Pine Crest School, canceling their fall seasons, and others, like Miami-Dade County, threatening to leave the FHSAA altogether.
- The GHSA in Georgia announced via a 12-0 vote that it would postpone football by 2 weeks, while other sports remain on schedule. That means that the football regular season will begin September 4 instead of August 21. After an 8-4 vote against remaining on schedule, Jasper Jewell, a member of the board and the athletic director of Atlantic Public Schools, said he was afraid that his district might cancel fall sports altogether if the season wasn’t delayed. That, and other discussions, wound up pushing unanimous support toward a two-week delay.
- South Carolina and North Carolina both postponed their fall high school sports schedules until September last week. South Carolina also has a very early State Championship meet, scheduled for early October.
- Michigan announced that it would plan to begin fall sports as usual, which includes girls swimming & diving. Practices for all fall sports besides football can begin August 12. The school has remained open to the possibility of having to suspend those sports during the season, at which point they’d be rescheduled for later in the year. Indoor pools in Michigan are still not open.
- Washington plans to push higher-risk sports to the spring, while (tentatively) allowing lower-risk sports, like girls swimming & diving, to remain on the fall calendar.
