The South Carolina High School League, which governs most of the high school sports in South Carolina, has postponed the start of its high school swimming season, along with all of its other fall sports seasons, as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
In a meeting last week, the Executive Committee approved the SCHSL plan to keep sports operational with “presumably a shortened season for fall sports.”
“It is the premise and promise of this league, from the membership, SCHSL staff, Executive Board and Appellate Panel, to support and encourage athletic participation among ALL of South Carolina’s students,” state Commissioner Jerome Singleton. “We have been overcome with grief and outright disappointment since mid-March when the nation was at a standstill with the onset of Covid-19. What has followed is months of uncertainty, confusion, and despair. That ends now! We are forging ahead with the information we have, placing as many health and safety precautions at the frontline and allowing fall sports to continue with adjustments.”
Under the new plan, which can be seen in its entirety here, the start of practice for fall sports, including swimming, was pushed back from July 31 to August 17.
The other major decisions were starting a 7 game football season on September 11 and shortening the playoff schedules in girls tennis, volleyball, and football.
Swimming Season
- Start of Practice: August 17
- First Contest: August 31
- Swim State Finals: October 10 and 12
The new schedule leaves the swimming state championship meets at similar timing to last year’s meets, when they were October 12 and 14.
The state has also tweaked the format of qualifying for the state meet this year. In the past, swimmers were able to swim state championship qualifying times at any regular season meet to be eligible. This year, there will be ‘qualifier events’ to determine advancement to state finals in swimming, as well as girls’ golf, cross-country, and competitive cheer.
The SCHSL has not publicly released what those qualifiers will look like in swimming.
The South Carolina swimming state championship events are traditionally the first in the country every season. This is due to the state’s large quantity of outdoor competition pools and trying to finish the season before any late-October cold snaps make those pools harder to use.
4 out of the 6 state title meets will feature teams trying to send their graduating seniors out having never lost.
Defending South Carolina State Champions, Swimming
Girls
- AAA – Oceanside Collegiate Academy
- AAAA – Eastside High (3-time defending champions)
- AAAAA – Wando High (3-time defending champions)
Boys
- AAA – St. Joseph’s Catholic School (3-time defending champions)
- AAAA – Eastside High (4-time defending champions)
- AAAAA – JL Mann High School
South Carolina is one of a number of states that has seen a dramatic increase in new positive tests for coronavirus since early June. Sunday saw a record 2,374 new cases reported, according to the New York Times, with an average of about 1,900 new daily cases over the last week. The state has seen an uptick in deaths attributed to COVID-19, though that increase has not been as dramatic as new daily cases.
In total, the state has 71,445 total cases leading to 1,164 deaths at time of publishing.
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.
- 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, though University of Michigan athletes have returned to training at the Canham Natatorium.
Lots of list opportunities this year. The already shortened season then one team singled out to not participate at state due to one positive case on the team after a region meet where many other schools participated. Very unfair to these kids. Lost opportunities.
To start, there is no Diving is SC – they only have swimming. Agree that it is one of the shortest seasons in the country, and the most varied. There are no leagues, where you have duals against other schools. For the most part, they are simply age group meets where the 7th grade and older kids wear different caps to represent the school they swim for. Because there are little to no standards on the sport, some schools will have 2 meets while others have 7-8 before a “regional” meet and then the state meet. Let’s hope SC is spared with hurricanes this year like they’ve seen the past 4 that takes even more time away from the eastern… Read more »
It is unfortunate that the SCHSL has to make this decision. South Carolina already has on of, if not the shortest swim seasons in the country. A large majority of the teams utilize neighborhood and recreational pools, which are outdoors and not heated. If there are any further delays, it could cost these kids their whole season.
They made the right decision to postpone it, but I think two weeks won’t be enough. I can only imagine that in this amount of time, the situation would probably stay the same or get worse, if we keep doing what we are doing. Or, possibly, reopening could be scaled back or a stay-at-home order could be placed, which would mean that this would get cancelled or postponed further.