In what proved to be a watershed moment of change, the FHSAA decided to push back all fall sports during an emergency meeting on Thursday night (July 23).
An 11-4 vote by the state’s board of directors reversed Monday night’s (July 20) original decision to keep the fall sports start date to July 27, delaying the new start date to August 24.
The latest move was witnessed by thousands of people on the FHSAA’s YouTube live recording of the meeting, which took about four hours to complete yesterday.
This decision was met with majority approval from the viewers, which comprised mainly of coaches, administrators, and even players from the state of Florida.
As always, no move will make everyone happy. But in all honesty, the majority should win out in most cases – especially when it comes to public health and safety in our current COVID-10 pandemic situation.
All fall sports teams (football, volleyball, cross country, bowling, swimming, and diving) are allowed to conduct summer conditioning and workout sessions, as per the FHSAA’s official decision. Also, the FHSAA will schedule an in-person board meeting between Aug. 10 and Aug. 17 to make final decisions on everything in regards to the fall sports season.
One thing that really stood in the emergency meeting was a survey taken earlier this week by Plant (Tampa) athletic director and FHSAA Board President. She revealed that of 396 member public schools surveyed, 359 of them were not ready to start fall practices on July 27, which adds up to 90.65 percent of public schools surveyed wanting a delay to the season.
Again, majority rules.
Also: An anonymous coach told a Fort Myers-based reporter that if the FHSAA did not have a concrete plan for all fall sports, then counties throughout the stats were going to go rogue.
Translation: This emergency meeting was a must-have by the FHSAA because it cannot afford to have the majority of schools in the state forming their own leagues or conferences.
“I think a delay of all the sports would be reasonable,” said Dr. Jennifer Maynard, who is the chairwoman of of the FHSAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee. “This virus is incredibly unpredictable. The only thing you can predict is it will change on you.”
PHOTO CREDITS: FHSAA and Zoom
