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WIAA releases guidelines for resuming summer athletic activities and fall competition

With these guidelines, sports may look very different come next fall

By Tim Martinez, Columbian Assistant Sports Editor
Published: June 22, 2020, 5:05pm

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association on Monday released guidelines for high school sports activities to resume this summer and into the fall amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

“This weekend we received, from the department of health, our approved guidelines” for resuming athletic activities,” said Mick Hoffman, executive director of the WIAA, in a recorded video message. “And what you’ll will find is a simplified version of the (National Federation of State High School Associations) guidelines you may have been using.”

Among the guidelines listed are:

  • Students (athletes) should be encouraged to wear face coverings. Cloth coverings are acceptable. And all state, local and school district guidelines regarding face coverings should be strictly enforced.
  • Coaches, officials and other contest personnel must wear face coverings at all times. Artificial noisemakers such as an air horn or a timer system with an alarm can be used to signal in place of a traditional whistle.
  • When a school or district closes due to COVID-19, there should be no practice, training or competition among athletes in that school or district. The WIAA will develop recommendations regarding team forfeitures or team standing when teams are permitted to return to contest.
  • Sports teams should limit travel, particularly when long trips are required by bus or van. Because different parts of the state could be facing different restrictions at different times, avoiding travel will also make rescheduling events easier if they are between teams from the same region of the state.
  • As much as possible, hold as much practice, conditioning and contests outside. Try to limit time spent indoors in a group to the extent practical.

Hoffman said that all guidelines are tied to each counties reopening phasing. Clark County is currently in Phase 2 of reopening, but could be eligible to move to Phase 3 as early as this weekend.

Hoffman also stressed that coaches and administrators check with their own school district policies and risk management teams before engaging in activities.

“I know a lot of you are hoping to start today, on Monday (June 22), but I also understand that some risk management pools have said (no activities) until June 30,” he said. “So even though you have our guidelines, it’s critical that you check in with risk management and your school district leadership.

The WIAA also categorized sports and events within certain sports in three groups — lower risk, moderate risk and high risk.

  • The high risk group included football and wrestling.
  • Moderate risk included basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer gymnastics, tennis, bowling, swimming relays and track and field events such as pole vault, high jump and long jump. Most of these, with the exception of basketball and soccer, could be considered low risk with appropriate cleaning of equipment and masks worn by participants.
  • Lower risk activities include track and field running events and throwing (javelin, shot put, discus) events, individual swimming events, golf and cross country with staggered starts.

Because of these groupings, each fall activities were given their own guidelines for returning to practice and competition. Those specific guidelines are available on the WIAA website for football, volleyball, soccer, slowpitch softball, swimming and diving, cross country as well as dance/drill and cheerleading.

Hoffman said the situation will remain fluid and as the WIAA fine-tunes its guidelines, it is hoping to be able to play sports throughout the fall.

But he cautioned that would require cooperation from all parties.

“If we have people who get out there too quickly — and several people have challenged the state and myself as well as our team —  on why we aren’t doing it like other states,” he said. “And now we are seeing that those other states that went too fast and having to go really slow to catch back up. We want to make sure to make consistent progress to give every child in our state that wants to participate in our education-based activities that opportunity to do that this fall.”

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