The news that high school sports teams and fans had been waiting weeks for was finally announced on Monday, and there were perhaps a few surprises in the revised calendars for the 2020-21 school year.
The CIF State, which governs high school athletics in California, made the decision that most coaches and administrators had anticipated by announcing that there will be no high school sports in the fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that hopefully sports will be able to begin in late December or early January if areas are able to meet state requirements regarding the coronavirus.
The announcement, made by Commissioner Ron Nocetti in a press release, included one modification that surprised some people. Instead of three shortened seasons (fall, winter and spring) that would start later in the year and reduce the length for each season, the CIF, Southern Section and L.A. City Section released calendars that have two sports seasons (fall and spring), which is similar to what the California Community Colleges will be doing in 2020-21.
“I want to thank, and am so appreciative of, our 10 section commissioners and the leadership they’ve shown in putting together a sports calendar and putting it into action,” Nocetti said by phone Monday, “and I thought they did a great job serving the most athletes, teams and our sections, which was tough to do.”
“The goal obviously was to provide as much opportunity to have full sports seasons for all our sports, and knowing that, we felt this was the best way to go, coming up with the two-season model that also allows for full section playoffs and at least state regional playoffs for most sports.”
The sports in the fall group will be football, boys and girls water polo, boys and girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, girls field hockey, competitive cheer and gymnastics.
Cross country, volleyball and field hockey will be the first sports to have competitions, beginning in mid-December.
The first week of the football season will be Jan. 8. Football teams can begin practices on Dec. 14, there will be a 10-game regular season, plus four weeks of section playoffs and regional or state championships that finish the football season on April 17.
The sports in the spring group include boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, boys and girls tennis, boys and girls track and field, boys and girls swimming, boys and girls golf, boys and girls lacrosse and boys and girls wrestling.
The sports in the spring group will play games as early as late February and some sports won’t finish their seasons until June 26, which is several weeks past when most schools have held graduation ceremonies.
The two-season calendar allows for longer sports seasons, section playoffs and state regional playoffs, which were three things CIF and most coaches and athletic directors wanted to accomplish.
The revised schedule could make it harder for athletes to play more than one sport because of the way the sports are now aligned and how some of them overlap. This could have a big impact on small schools, which rely heavily on dual-sport athletes.
Nocetti said he knew there was no way to devise a new plan that would solve every scenario.
“But I do think the two sports-season model gives the athlete better options than the three-season model, had we gone with that, which would have been more overlap,” Nocetii said.
The two-season model was a decision made in collaboration with all 10 section offices, including the CIF-SS and L.A. City sections.
“Over the last several months, and through the ever-changing situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been working on various scenarios to deliver fall, winter and spring sports during the 2020-21 school year,” CIF-SS commissioner Rob Wigod said in a released statement. “In examining the most effective way to deliver fall, winter and spring sports, the decision was made to condense the three seasons of sport in two season of sport, primarily to help with the spacing between particular sports and the overlap of certain sports between seasons.”
The CIF and sections said it was a priority to have full section playoffs and regional or state championships for all sports.
“Which means the same number of champions in each sport,” Wigod said, “the same number of divisions in each sport and the same number of guaranteed entries from leagues advancing to the playoffs in each sport as previous years.”
In an unprecedented move, the CIF said this school year it will allow athletes to simultaneously compete for club teams and high school teams while they are in season.
“Due to the need to move sports to non-traditional times of the year, the CIF is temporarily suspending Bylaws 600, 601, 602, 603, 604, and 605 for all sports for the 2020-21 school year,” the CIF statement read. “Accordingly, students will be allowed to participate on an outside team at the same time they participate on their high school team. As per CIF Article 23, local schools, school districts, leagues, and Sections may develop a more restrictive rule than the CIF State Office with respect to the aforementioned Bylaws.”
There will be no high school sports until January of 2021 and will be a two season sports calendar, condensing down from three. Here is a look https://t.co/DtcqYiBCsW pic.twitter.com/8tJs89WKXq
— Fred J. Robledo 👨🏻💻 (@SGVNSports) July 20, 2020
The CIF-SS on Monday endorsed the rule change that will allow this, but that doesn’t mean it is automatically put into place.
School districts and private schools make all of the final decisions regarding their high school sports teams, including whether they will adopt the revised CIF and section sports calendars. It is expected that nearly all schools in Southern California will follow the new schedules.
The CIF-SS released its revised calendar shortly after the state announced the playoff dates for regional and state championships. The CIF-SS calendar runs from mid-December to the end of June.
As sports placed in the fall season, boys and girls volleyball can start play on Dec. 19 and boys and girls water polo on Dec. 21. The CIF-SS finals dates for those sports: boys volleyball, March 6; girls volleyball, March 12-13; boys water polo, March 6; girls water polo, March 13.
The CIFSS has released it's calendar for the season. Here are the fall sports calendar… @SGVNSports @Tarek_Fattal pic.twitter.com/ysw8FdzQbd
— James Escarcega 📈🏈🏀⚾️🥎 🤼🤽🏽♂️🏊🏼♀️🏌🏻⚽️ (@James_Escarcega) July 20, 2020
Cross country can have its first competition on Dec. 26, its CIF-SS finals are March 20 and the state championships are March 27.
Boys and girls basketball, grouped with the sports for the spring season, won’t start their seasons until March and won’t finish until mid-June, The first basketball contests will be on March 12, the CIF-SS finals on June 11-12 and the state regional finals on June 18-19. There will no state championships for basketball.
“We will have state championships for sports that normally go straight to state finals like cross country, wrestling, swimming and diving and some of those sports,” Nocetti said. “But for boys and girls basketball, right now we just scheduled regional championships. In all team sports we wanted to conclude the state playoffs in a week, and most of our team sports are just regional playoffs and accomplish that and basketball will be the same way.”
Boys and girls soccer begin games on April 3. The CIF-SS finals are on May 28-29 and the state regional finals on June 5.
Swimming and tennis will have their CIF-SS finals on May 29 and conclude their seasons with state championships by June 5.
Baseball and softball will begin games on March 19 and the CIF-SS finals are on June 18-19. There will state regional finals for the first time in each sport on June 26.
The CIF-SS track and field finals will be June 19 and the state championships on June 26.
The COVID-19 pandemic shut down all of the spring sports in mid-March, ending the seasons for baseball and softball teams after only a handful of games and before track and field had a chance to compete in marquee events.
The pandemic also forced the cancellation of the boys and girls basketball state championships in Sacramento.
It was a disappointing end to the high school careers for many seniors, who also missed out on proms and grad nights due to the pandemic.
There was hope in the spring that several months of stay-at-home orders and strict restrictions would help control the pandemic and lower the curve enough that students could return to campus in the fall, and sports could resume as planned or with a short delay. But the situation in July was worse, in some ways, than it was in March.
Recent spikes in COVID-19 cases in Southern California made forced Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday to announced that 32 counties on the state’s COVID-19 “watch list” had to start the school year with distance only learning. That directive applies to all public and private schools. Once counties come off the “watch list,” schools may be allowed to reopen, and that could lead to schools allowing sports activities to resume on campus.
Counties must remain off the “watch list” for two weeks before being able to return to in-class instruction.
