Football is also probably done, at least for this calendar year. The NFL can make headlines with free agency and tribe team training its virtual draft, but none of those players will probably be allowed to hit the field until sometime in the late fall. College coaches can spout all they want about their kids being tougher than any lil’ old virus, but they aren’t. If there is a season, coaches will have to wear masks, teams won’t be able to enter school buildings and water bottles and gear will even be socially distanced. Millersville University’s women’s cross country and women’s swimming teams will have a season after all. With coronavirus cases on the rise in Pennsylvania and around the country, Millersville University is shifting its classes “primarily” online in the fall, according to an email sent to faculty by the university provost.
- No one likes death and it affects all of us personally, but as we all know, death is a fact of life.
- At the end of Thursday’s press conference, Governor Tom Wolf recommends no sports until January 1, 2021.
- But too much is unknown about coronavirus and its long-term effects.
- The novel coronavirus outbreak has already canceled or postponed the NCAA tournament, the Olympics and Wimbledon.
- The new guidelines apply to junior high sports as well.
- The distrust between the players and owners, so evident earlier this summer, is not likely to evaporate amid the pandemic, and that’s not even accounting for the fact that many teams, even the Yankees, are already laying off employees.
Heat acclimation for football will begin on Aug. 31. The earliest date of competition is for golf, which begins matches on Sept. 8, followed by girls’ tennis (Sept. 9), football (Sept. 18) and the remaining fall sports (Sept. 24). Applies to team and individual, school and non-school recreational youth sports.
Local News
The Centennial Conference, which includes several Pennsylvania colleges, also suspended its fall sports schedule. State Rep. Torren Ecker, a Republican representing Adams and Cumberland counties, criticized Wolf’s recommendation on delaying sports until the new year. He said sports and extracurricular activities are essential to the lives of high school students.
No Sports Until 2021 For Psac Schools, Including Millersville
(And, uh, the rest of us too.) It is one thing to weather an unprecedented plague for one year. It is quite another if that plague affects the 2021 season, or heaven forbid the 2022 one. It took an incredible feat of planning, engineering, and logistics to figure out this year.
The conference doesn’t allow graduate transfers, and the only way to get an extra year of competition is through a medical redshirt. Then there’s the fun of a reconfigured NBA schedule that, face it, already needed fixing. Start the season in January, play through August, and make that permanent.
If this happens more than once or twice, the entire legitimacy of the season will be in question. Using information from the PIAA, the WPIAL says it has decided to use a “hybrid start” which means fall sports won’t begin any later than Oct. 5 and there will be different start dates for different sports. “For reasons beyond understanding, the governor waited until practices have already started, equipment has already been purchased, fees have already been paid, and dreams of a return to normalcy have already been formed by athletes and families alike. Like it or not, this country will soon get back to business and deal with virus accordingly.
Latest News
If he said this back in July then it wouldn’t have blindsided the PIAA. It should not take a reporter asking this specific question to get this recommendation. These things need to be communicated early and clearly. Governor Tom Wolf believes that no high school sports should be played in Pennsylvania until after Jan. 1. Gov. Tom Wolf has recommended Thursday that high school sports be delayed until 2021.
PSAC fall sports include men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey, football, and women’s volleyball. The conference’s winter sports include men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s indoor track & field and men’s and women’s basketball. In early March, MLB officials considered the option of playing games without fans to be a last resort. But in recent days, with the regular season on indefinite delay and concerns becoming more urgent, baseball officials have softened their stance toward the notion of playing games without fans. The NFL has an easier path to return than college football.
He said the only way to stop the virus is a vaccine, which experts expect will not be ready before early 2021. Speaking during a Thursday news conference that was to be an overview about the status of testing in the state, Wolf responded to the final question about spectators being prohibited from attending high school sports. In the following days, many other conferences in both the FBS and FCS levels would begin to cancel their basketball and other winter sports tournaments and eventually announcing cancellations of the entire spring sports season. It was meeting on Thursday to discuss its plan to move forward with the Fall high school sports season. In fact, heat acclimatization practices for football are scheduled to start on Monday. That question was raised because when it last released a statement, the PIAA said Fall high school sports would go on as planned.