There will be high school sports at State College as school board OKs fall competition plan
State College will officially be allowed to return to fall sports competition in both contact and non-contact sports after the school board of directors approved the athletic department’s Athletics Health and Safety Plan Thursday night.
The decision will allow contact sports such as football, soccer, field hockey and volleyball to resume competition against other teams once students return to in-person learning in the school district, and passed with a 7-2 vote. Board members Lori Bedell and Gretchen Brandt both voted against the plan. The plan for non-contact sports passed unanimously, and will allow those teams to begin abbreviated competition schedules immediately.
The school district has been learning remotely since Sept. 4, after COVID-19 cases began to spike in the district ZIP codes, and will continue to do so for at least another week. According to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard, there have been two employee and four student cases in SCASD as of Thursday.
The plan includes safety measures like mask-wearing, physical distancing, hand hygiene, and temperature checks for athletes and coaches before practices and travel to competitions.
Because football has the highest level of contact, those athletes will be required to enroll in remote instruction or the district’s virtual academy from after the first game until 14 days after the last game.
While the contact-sports teams can compete against other schools if the district is conducting in-person learning, there’s no guarantee that a season will be completed. The teams will not be allowed to compete against other schools if the district returns to all-remote learning in the future.
In that scenario, teams will be permitted to practice and compete in intrasquad scrimmages under the district’s previous plan for athletics.
Several coaches and student-athletes across all sports spoke fervently in favor of the plan for contact sports during public comment on the matter, including State High head football coach Matt Lintal.
“Today, I stand with our players and families to advocate for their physical, mental and emotional health as a school counselor and football coach,” Lintal said. “I’ve always said that we will treat our players as people, students and athletes in that order. Our football staff and I can confidently say our entire athletic department has never wavered from this person-centered approach. ... My biggest concern as a school counselor would be the mental health of our kids should the cancellation of sports become the reality.”
The non-contact sports — golf, tennis and cross country — will be allowed to take part in competitions whether the school is learning in-person or fully remote. In the case of remote learning, competitions will be mostly limited to other Mid Penn teams.
However, it’s unclear if girls’ tennis will compete this fall after senior captain Ellie Morar spoke during public comment at the board meeting at the request of her coach, Jane Borden, about the team’s concerns about returning to competition.
“The consensus in the girls’ team is that we’re all comfortable with practicing and having scrimmages within our team,” Morar said. “But many of the girls have been talking and we’re all really concerned about traveling and having teams come here for competition.”
Morar said the tennis team is trying to think about the big picture rather than focusing on high school sports.
“We think opening up our isolated community, which is the small tennis team, to more germ pools would put us at high risk,” she said. “There is assurance that it will be safe, but there’s also so many variables that we really can’t account for. For lots of us right now, we’re trying to value long-term health and happiness along with the health of our community, which could be risked by traveling.”
State College Superintendent Bob O’Donnell later said he would support any team that doesn’t want to compete this fall.
Several other people, including student-athletes, coaches and parents spoke along with board members during nearly three hours of discussion. Girls’ cross country coach Rebecca Donaghue was one who spoke in favor of the plan.
“I am in support of all sports moving forward with starting official competitions,” Donaghue said. “We all know the countless physical and mental benefits of interscholastic sports for students. And if done safely, following the district’s protocols, they can be even more beneficial during the pandemic. The safety plan that the athletic department and district have set in place, which all coaches and athletes have been following for weeks and some even months, is incredibly safe.”
As for fans, State College will follow the governor’s guidelines, limiting outdoor gatherings to no more than 250 people, and indoor to no more than 25.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 12:37 AM.
