The California Interscholastic Federation’s San Diego Section announced on Friday it will not hold the 2021 section championship meet because of COVID-19. The CIF commission had switched the start of swim and dive season with water polo, so swim and dive started two months early and the championship was set to take place on April 23 and 24.
In his memo, commissioner Joe Heinz wrote:
“The CIF San Diego Section has made the difficult decision to cancel the Swim & Dive Championships previously scheduled for Saturday, April 24th. We have been holding out hope that the state’s guidance would be adjusted to accommodate larger scaled competitions, yet based upon all the information available to us at this time we do not see any adjustments being made that would enable us to host a section-wide Championship event. We will adjust our 2020-2021, Master Calendar to show April 24th as the last possible date for competitions. We would also like to thank our Swim & Dive, student-athletes, coaches, Conference Presidents, Schedulers, and Officials Associations who worked with us in an extremely tight time span to adjust their schedules and seasons to provide this opportunity for student-athletes throughout our section.”
This marks the second year in a row that the San Diego Section student-athletes have not had a championship meet. Greg Spire, head coach of Canyon Crest Academy, is organizing a Zoom call to discuss options with area coaches on Sunday, March 28.
The North Coast Section has also canceled their championships. As of now, the Central Coast Section, Southern Section, and Sac-Joaquin Section are all slated to hold championship meets in May.
The CIF San Diego Section has made the difficult decision to cancel the Swim & Dive Championships previously scheduled for Saturday, April 24th. Stupid idea. This sport is very save compared to other. If you don’t know how to run, step the hell down, let someone else run it. Dumpers.
I have been reading the below comments and replies, and I would like to set the story straight.
Having worked on this for the past 72 hours, it is pretty clear what happened here and what we (San Diego Section High School coaches) are recommending.
First, the CIF San Diego Section nor the State of California are to blame here. In my opinion, there is no one to blame and playing the blame game will not support these student athletes to have the opportunity for their CIF San Diego Section Championships. The County of San Diego made the decision not to approve the Championships. The CIF San Diego Section leadership tried to work with the county, but were not successful.… Read more »
Can you give us an update on the county response to the plan you submitted. Thanks
In may opinion, CIF San Diego does not have the best interest of our athletes. This is just “for show and pat their backs” that they have done something.
Swimming has been the safest sport. These kids have been looking forward to some normalcy. HS athletes have been hopeful and excited to finally have a season and compete in a Championship meet (which was taken from them last season). Now, it has been taken away from them, again! CIF SD has taken that opportunity from them. They just decided on what they believe would be SAFE for the athletes? Do they really know what is safe and best?
CIF San Diego should have thought of having a contingency… Read more »
So state championships have been ongoing throughout the country for months and CA is still in cancel mode. What an absolute failure of the CIF, state/local decision makers and politicians. California has become the model for what not to do for virtually everything.
The next time that whole club vs high school swimming debate comes up then keep this in mind. Most clubs are incentivized by their survival to find a way. CIF and the school districts in SD are looking hard for every possible way to do nothing.
I would politely disagree. High school coaches need to come together to help our section find a way to make this happen.
Thank you Greg for fighting for our kids.
Coach Spire, you’re going a great job down there with SSD – keep up the great work! In no way do I mean to suggest that the high school coaches aren’t doing their best. And I recognize that many club coaches work with a high school also. But CIF and the Unified School Districts are tied at the hip and I haven’t met a single parent in SD County lately that has anything positive to say about any of the unified school districts in our County. Meanwhile both my baby sharks have enjoyed competing in 3 sanctioned swim meets through our beloved swim club in the past 6 weeks. Hoping that our LSC will do more more for our ‘Unattached”… Read more »
BuT aT LeaST eVerYone’S SAfe
They should allow a virtual sanctioned version with multiple sites across the section 🙁 I feel for myself and all of the other athletes who have been training for a year for this meet
I think that SI swimming is hosting 13&O time trials for LC and SC around that date? I think they were originally meant to hop on the CIFs taper but I guess that’s probably all we have now 🙁
Other sections in California are going forward with championship meets. I’m kind of confused here. It looks like San Diego wants to have a large scale meet and they are the ones pulling the plug. It doesn’t need to be a large scale meet. Without all the info it appears to me that this is a San Diego problem not a California problem. Would be nice to have a better explanation from the commissioner
Swimming is a Spring sport in CA. The other sections didn’t pull the swim season in like San Diego did. They other sections just have their meets scheduled later in May. They will get canceled as well so be ready.
This is all the fault of Gavin Newsom and Democrats that have the most ridiculous restrictions in place. No school district will buck what the “rules” are. Florida has proved that all of this has been for nothing. The shutdowns and the damage done to our kids hasn’t made any difference.
I know what the other sections are doing and they haven’t cancelled anything so you basically just came in here to say Democrats are dumb. Awesome post
Cif NCS and CCS are not holding section championships meets.