Idaho’s high school sports governing body declined to delay the start of the fall season Wednesday, instead leaving that decision to local schools and leagues. Board members for the Idaho High School Activities Association debated pushing back the upcoming first day of practices. But they decided to make no statewide changes, allowing practices for football, soccer, volleyball, cross country and swimming to start Monday.
We set the schedule and we go with it. This state is too big and there are so many different pockets of COVID in different areas, that it’s not fair to slip it back for everybody, said Derek Newland, an IHSAA board member and the director of student transportation for the State Department of Education.
The Treasure Valley’s largest schools, however, won’t start Monday. Superintendents in the 5A and 4A Southern Idaho Conferences agreed Tuesday to delay the first day of practices one week, to Aug. 17. Boise Superintendent Coby Dennis said the league will re-evaluate when it can start practices each week during Tuesday’s Boise School Board meeting.
At a minimum, the delayed start will cost the Boise, Borah, Eagle, Kuna, Mountain View, Nampa, Ridgevue, Rocky Mountain and Skyview football teams games scheduled for Aug. 21. The first full schedule of games Aug. 28 also remains in doubt.
Athletic directors in the SIC will meet Thursday to iron out more details. I truly don’t see why we would not want to delay a little bit,” said Ted Reynolds, an IHSAA board member and the Ridgevue athletic director. I don’t know what delay that is. I don’t know if it’s a week. I don’t know if it’s two weeks. I don’t know if it’s after Labor Day.
What I would hate to see is we try to get sports going full-bore and something breaks out there, which affects the way we open schools, which has to be the priority.
Leave a Reply