Kansas high school winter sports will start on time but without fans until next year
The winter high school sports season in Kansas will start on time next week, following a compromise reached by the Kansas State High School Activities Association Board of Directors.
The KSHSAA Board of Directors, a group of 77 members with representatives from every league in the state, called a virtual meeting on Tuesday to consider a proposal that would have delayed the start of winter sports until Jan. 15.
After agreeing on an amendment, they passed an item that will allow winter sports to commence from Tuesday, Dec. 1 to Tuesday, Dec. 22 and begin once again on Friday, Jan. 8. The vote passed by a 53-22 count with the amendment proposed by Olathe North athletic director Jason Herman. It was also determined middle school sports will follow suit.
The Board of Directors also declined to take action on limiting the number of events that basketball, wrestling, swimming and bowling teams can participate in this season, meaning teams will be allowed to play a full schedule.
“If you guys got the same emails that I did, the parents and students have spoken and we need to let the kids play,” Eureka principal Sean Spoonts said during the discussion.
After allowing each individual school to work with local health authorities to determine the number of fans who could attend games for fall sports, the Board of Directors didn’t approve such a measure for winter sports. Instead they passed the original motion, which won’t allow any fans at games through at least Jan. 28, 2021. That vote passed by a 50-26 count.
In speaking with reporters after the decision, KSHSAA executive director Bill Faflick said he knows the decision will draw criticism from parents.
“It’s been a very emotional time every time there’s been restrictions on people to be able to attend contests for their kids or for their alma mater or for their favorite school,” Faflick said. “But something’s not working because community spread is continuing and there needs to be a response. The one thing we know is the three areas of concern is meeting, eating and greeting and those all take place at ball games.
“We work really hard to have social distancing expectations and crowd limits, but it doesn’t do any good to have crowd limits if everybody congregates together. Can we dial it back eventually? Certainly, that’s a possibility, but right now the board has said the cleanest, safest way to do this, based on what doctors are saying about this disease spreading through adults and their interactions, is by eliminating some of those interactions.”
Faflick told the media that while there will be pushback from parents, he does not anticipate there being any pushback from schools about the no-fan policy after the state provided a uniformed decision on Tuesday.
“Our administrators are rule followers,” Faflick said. “They just need to know what those rules are.”
During the public forum portion of the meeting, it was clear from listening to parents, athletes and coaches from around the state that they were in favor of winter sports starting next week — against the recommendations made unanimously from the KSHSAA medical advisory committee.
Speaking to board members before the vote, Faflick stressed that going forward “it’s not about the individual me’s, it’s about the collective we’s.”
“The bottom line is no matter what this board decides today, there needs to be a commitment from every educator from all stakeholders beyond the (sports team) for a strict adherence to the mitigation protocols. This isn’t something we can implement. We need to have considerations. We need to have protocols in place that are implemented with fidelity.
“90% is not good enough. 95% is not good enough. It just takes one exposure and if you’re not masked up, if you’re not social distancing, then you could be the next COVID patient. We’re not trying to strike fear in the heart of anybody. We just simply want to do what is responsible and what is responsible is for our system to work.”
David Smith, the team physician for the Kansas City Royals and a representative from the KSHSAA medical advisory committee, also weighed in to the board of directors before they voted.
“The numbers in our health system are at an all-time high,” Smith said. “We’ve never had more patients in the hospital with COVID. We’re about triple what we were at a month ago.
“We’re in the fourth quarter now. We had spring, we had summer, we had fall and now we’re in winter and I will predict we will go into overtime because this is not ending. The data is very clear we are not ending this soon.”
Smith also touched on an earlier point that there was no evidence that transmission was occurring at a higher level during high school sporting events.
“We have no evidence from competitive fields or practice fields of transmission greater than in the general public,” Smith said. “That study is not peer-reviewed, so I think we need to use caution. The numbers are equivalent. There’s not a difference between student-athletes and non-athletes. So we could hypothetically say if they’re not in sports, they’re doing something else, going to club sports or social events, and still potentially transmitting the virus.”
The number of competitions allowed for winter sports was a point of contention after it became apparent the original suggestions — capping teams around 65% of their original schedule — were going to be raised.
The discussion started when trying to determine the maximum number of games a basketball team could play this season. The original suggestion was 13 games, but then the KSHSAA made a new suggestion of 17 games following the adjusted moratorium dates.
“With the dates that we passed, I’m only going to have to take one game off of my schedule,” one board member said. “I’m at 19 games. What other two games do I decide not to fulfill the contract on? Is everybody going to be OK with everybody opting out of contracts?”
Those questions asked seemed to spur the Board of Directors to decide to take no action in limiting the amount of regular-season competitions for winter sports, meaning basketball, wrestling, bowling and swimming teams can play their full schedules. That voted passed 66-7.
It was also determined that eight-team basketball tournaments can still be played, as long as there are no more than two games being played concurrently on site. It was also determined that wrestling tournaments will have no more than eight teams or 112 individual participants.
The board of directors did pass a motion that will require all participants, including athletes, coaches, officials, spectators and support staff, to wear a face covering. The only exception is for athletes when they are competing and for officials during active play.
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 3:35 PM.
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