CHSAA delays start of high school sports Season B

On Dec. 7, the Colorado High School Athletics Association announced that Season B, originally slated to begin in early January, will now be pushed to at least February. At Niwot High School, boys and girls basketball, girls swim and dive and wrestling are the sports impacted.

CHSAA's verdict came after the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment expressed concern with statewide COVID-19 cases on the rise. CDPHE Executive Director Jill Hunsaker Rye prioritized getting students back in school and removing the risk of indoor sports.

"Our top goal for the new year is to support a return to in-person learning," Hunsaker Rye wrote in a letter to CHSAA. "Season B sports are conducted mainly indoors during the colder months, which reduces the ability to assure social distancing. This in turn may further promote disease transmission at a time when we need to ensure that students and teachers are protected and that in-person learning is the highest priority."

With another schedule change, Niwot Athletic Director Joe Brown has been on his toes most of 2020.

"If this year has taught us anything, it's not to expect anything -- it's to just be constantly ready to adjust," Brown said. "Thankfully, our coaches, our parents and our kids and community have bought into that as well in these uncertain times."

One of Niwot's impacted teams will be girls basketball. Head coach Terri Ward's Cougars had been doing offseason workouts three times a week since October before shutting down last week. To make the situation harder to swallow, Ward said the workouts were seeing a lot of players and good participation. Instead of holding workouts, she plans on sending the team instructional videos and meeting over Zoom.

But online learning may come with its consequences according to Ward. Besides a concern over injuries when play resumes, Ward said that academic success is becoming a concern. As Hunsaker Rye said, delaying the start of Season B to prioritize in-person learning may have an upside.

"Kids in general need to be able to be in the building to learn because the amount of kids failing grades right now is just astronomical and that's a critical piece," Ward said. "We have kids that aren't going to be able to graduate right now because their grades are so bad. It's hard to do online learning because it's so easy to not do it."

As online learning continues in SVVSD, Ward believed it was difficult to justify an indoor athletic season. "The sooner we go back to hybrid learning, I think the better chance we have of having a season," Ward said.

The delay of Season B has also pushed Season C and D back. Competition was set to begin on March 4 for Season C and will now start on March 15; Season D will shift from April 29 to May 10. These dates could change, however, with CHSAA, CDPHE and state government officials planning to meet again in mid-January.

Regardless of when seasons begin, Brown said he will keep his goals student-oriented.

"We're just going to be in the business of being as optimistic as possible and doing the best that we can to give every opportunity possible to our kids," Brown said. "That's our drive and our mission even in a non-COVID year."