INDIANAPOLIS — The Coronavirus pandemic has stopped the high school sports world dead in its tracks, but the clock continues to tick as time slowly works against a potential restart with each passing day.
With schools across the state closed until at least early April — if not longer — the Indiana High School Athletic Association is currently fashioning plans to hopefully resume spring sports participation and possibly the boys basketball state tournament. However, all of their contingencies hinge on when the public’s health and safety are no longer at risk.
“Now, we’re looking at what the rest of the school year will look like, but these are contingencies of what might happen,” IHSAA commissioner Bobby Cox remarked on the possibility of a sports restart. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, so it’s a very fluid situation.”
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The key to finishing out the 2019-20 high school sports seasons will be determined when the upward trend of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) contagion shows signs of regression, if not eradication.
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the White House urge people not to gather in groups of 50 or more and 10 or more in order to combat the spread of the Coronavirus, spectator sports are in jeopardy for the immediate future.
“Yes, there’s some disappointment. I would have loved to have seen our final basketball tournament for me and the spring sports as well. That’s in limbo right now. We don’t know what that’s going to look like,” Cox said.
“I hope we can crest the hill and our cases will start going down or we find a vaccine, and we immunize people and we start turning the trend of this issue. If we can do that in the next few weeks, then maybe we’ve got a chance to do something this spring. If we don’t, then we don’t.”
The harsh reality is time, especially when factoring in the required preseason preparation of 10 full practices prior to participation for any IHSAA sport. Another obstacle is activity overlaps as delays could move into the summer months.
The IHSAA won’t officially announce a cancellation deadline for spring sports with the status of the pandemic changing daily, but the estimations based on current social interaction limitations weighs heavily.
“You start thinking, working from the state championship backwards. What’s the last drop-dead date that you can start baseball and softball to have a meaningful season and a tournament series? We’re trying to make those determinations,” Cox said. “It’s probably going to be sometime in early May, but if we’re still on a significant quarantine restriction with activities and gatherings, if we get into May, we’re probably done with spring sports. Same thing is true with the basketball tournament.”
The IHSAA’s track and field state finals for 2019-20 was originally planned to take place June 5-6 while baseball is the last state championship set for June 19-20.
An end to the 2019-20 sports season isn’t a decision Cox and the IHSAA intend to make lightly, but the reality, much like the economic ramifications the seasons cancellation would entail, are substantial.
“We love to play sports and coming from an athletics organization, we want to have contests for kids, but in the end of the day, what’s the greater good? The greater good is the safety of our public. If it doesn’t trend downward, then we’re probably done,” Cox said. “And, if we’re done, we’ll make contingencies and hopefully we get through the summer and maybe by the fall we can start back at school and start back into a better environment and start with our fall sports.”
Schools aren’t projected to reopen for another two to three weeks. However, with confirmed reports of the virus increasing statewide, that projected time frame could extend into mid-to-late April.
The IHSAA practice requirement would move any spring sport start date out into May or later, even for boys and girls track and field, which opened its seasons on March 2, prior to the pandemic outbreak in the state.
“There’s a delicate balance. Our practice rule is a health and safety rule. I’m not very comfortable waiving practices when the situation we’re in is a health and safety issue. We have youngsters now that have been removed from their school,” Cox said. “At some point, the schools will reopen. It doesn’t make any sense to me to reassemble a spring sports team and say, you can go compete now. You got to observe those kids for a little while in practice. What have they been able to do while they’ve been gone? I don’t want to ignore that.”
In track and field’s case, since the teams have met the IHSAA’s 10-practice policy and have competed in indoor events, the requirement drops to six practices to resume. If a team breaks for 5-10 days, only four practices are needed. If it’s more than 10 days of downtime, then the number elevates to six.
According to Cox, some have suggested moving the seasons later into the summer to avoid cancellation, if the pandemic is under control by May. Yet, that scenario complicates state finals venue availability and could prevent student-athletes from participating in offseason competition with club teams and AAU basketball.
“I have people saying, why don’t you just push everything back into the summer? Well, that’s easier said than done. What other activities are you infringing upon that are summertime activities for families and kids?,” Cox said.
“They’ve already got plans for the summer. Are you going to push your baseball tournament later? Where are you going to play that state finals? And, do we have support of our membership. Do they want to be supervising and coaching and playing in late June, early July, mid-July, late July or August? How much support do you really get for that? At some point, people are going to say enough is a enough. Let’s move on. That’s what we’re tying to ascertain.”
The revenue loss with the potential discontinuation of the IHSAA’s state tournament series is equally as concerning. With budgetary needs estimated in advance, the IHSAA and its membership will feel the impact moving forward, if there are no state tournament events the remainder of 2019-20.
“The largest part of the revenue source for this organization is tournament gate receipts. If we don’t have any tournaments, you don’t have any revenue,” Cox said. “That means this organization and all of our state organizations around the country are going to have to make some hard decisions in the next year about how you allocate your resources and what that’s going to look like and at the same time protect your employees their families.”
Historically, according to Cox, the IHSAA has netted nearly half a million dollars in spring sports revenue each season over the past 10 years. The boys state basketball tournament series brings that yearly total to $1 million.
“Things that we allocate resources to now where we might not be able to do that in the immediate future, there’s a lot of considerations here. We provide more revenue to our membership from our tournament series events then we collect to run the organization. And, we’ve done that for many years,” Cox said.
“That numbers from anywhere from $2.6 million to $3 million a year. That goes back to our member schools. That may change. It might have to change. We have no choice. Everyone is going to have to carry a little bit of the load to get through this.”
The IHSAA has safe-guarded from the financial strain the organization is facing by investing its past 10-year revenue into a rainy day fund, but if the pandemic carries into the 2020-21 sports season or beyond, there could be even more difficult decisions ahead.
“Those aren’t easy decisions. I don’t think everybody thinks about that. They think about how we’re not going to have a basketball tournament. We possibly might not have a baseball tournament. OK, that’s sad but that’s not the big issue here. There are a lot more issues of sustaining people’s livelihood and protecting their health and well-being,” Cox said.
