Colorado Cancels All Spring High School Sports; Nevada Likely to Follow

The Colorado High School Athletics’ Association (CHSAA) has announced the cancellation of all spring high school sports. While the state is not the last in the country to officially cancel the remainder of the high school sporting calendar (about 14 states have left the door open for some version of spring sports to happen), they are the 2nd-to-last state to officially cancel the high school swimming & diving season.

The cancellations are a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Colorado High School boys’ swimming & diving state championship meets were scheduled for May 21st-23rd, which was the latest originally-scheduled state championship event.

The cancellation technically goes until June 1st, which is the end of the CHSAA calendar season, and Colorado has said that they will not sanction competitions beyond that date. Some states have discussed making spring sports available through the summer, even to seniors, if conditions improve, but several others have closed the door on those proposals.

After June 1, all decisions regarding student and coach contact, virtual workouts, virtual tryouts and eighth-grade contact will be made at the local level.

Other states that cancelled spring sports this week include Illinois, which has already completed its high school swimming & diving state championship meets.

“Our hats are off to the many seniors that have shown maturity and resolve as their culminating year of high school has been impacted beyond activities and athletics due to this worldwide COVID-19 pandemic,” CHSAA Commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green said in her letter announcing the cancellation. “The Class of 2020 will not be forgotten.

“Our fingers are now crossed and our hopes are that the Association will be able to conduct a fall season with some level of normalcy. Our office will be entirely focused on contingency plans for the 2020 fall season and beyond, should they be needed.”

Colorado has 10,878 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far, with 508 confirmed deaths caused by COVID-19.

Nevada

As far as we know, the only state that has not formally cancelled its 2019-2020 high school swimming & diving championship is Nevada. To be more accurate, it’s the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association (NIAA), which actually includes schools in the states of California and Arizona.

On Tuesday, the NIAA updated its membership that the plan they proposed 3 weeks ago, which would allow some version of high school sports to resume if schools resume.

Later in the day, however, the governor of Nevada announced that schools would be closed through the remainder of the year. While the NIAA has not formally declared the seasons closed, they have said that with no in-person education there will be no sports, and the former condition has been met.

“Should schools re-open to in-person instruction this school year, it is anticipated at this time that competition will not go beyond the dismissal of school for the current school year,” the Tuesday statement from the NIAA read, in part. “It is anticipated at this time that schools will conclude this school year as originally scheduled. If schools do not reconvene for in-person instruction and allow for practices and contests by May 4, it is unlikely competition could be resumed for NIAA sanctioned spring sports”

The NIAA says that schools in Arizona and California, where schools have been closed for the remainder of the academic year, would not be allowed to participate in these programs – schools are only allowed to participate when in-person instruction resumes.

On Wednesday, the mayor of Las Vegas, the biggest city in Nevada, rejected governor Steve Sisolak’s mandated shutdown of all nonessential businesses due to the coronavirus, calling for the reopening of Las Vegas’ casinos, restaurants, bars, and “boutiques.” It appears that the city is abiding by the shut down to this point, in spite of the mayor’s rhetoric.

Nevada has 4,081 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far with 172 confirmed deaths from COVID-19.

From Bart Thompson, Executive Director, NIAA:

As I have been typing this memo, I have received word from the executive directors in seven states that all spring activities and athletics have been cancelled in those states. Currently, it appears that at least 36 states have cancelled high school sports this spring. Nevada and Montana are the only western states that have not yet officially cancelled all spring sports and activities.

Our hearts are broken for the sudden end to the high school sports careers of all of our seniors across the nation who would be finishing up their final year of competition. The fact that they are not alone in missing the culmination of their high school educational and athletic efforts doesn’t soften the blow.

The lessons they have learned through high school sports such as teamwork, perseverance, over-coming adversity, sacrifice for the good of the team, etc. are being seriously tested in the real world rather than the world of controlled competition. They are heroes, albeit in many cases unwilling ones, having given up what they love and have sacrificed for, to preserve the health and the very lives of those they don’t even know.

The chances of resuming the 2020 spring high school season are growing smaller each hour of each passing day, but as of this moment, there is still a sliver, however small, of hope. High school sports exist to promote the educational mission of our schools. The teams are part of the school that sponsors them. The leagues in which they compete are made up entirely of other high school teams. When those schools are closed, so are the teams which are a part of those schools. As we all exercise patience, we hope and pray for a safe and full re-opening of our schools that will allow for practice and competition in NIAA sanctioned sports in support of the purpose of our schools.