Wake County will resume high school athletics. Here’s the plan.
Some Wake County high school sports teams will be allowed back on campus starting Oct. 1.
The Wake County school system, which is the largest in North Carolina, has suspended high school athletics since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Wake County school administrators presented Tuesday a plan for a “soft rollout and cautious return to play for student athletes.”
“It is essential to the physical, emotional and mental well being of students to return to physical activity in as safe a manner as possible, which is the basis of our plan,” Deran Coe, Wake’s director of athletics, told the school board.
The first teams back will be cross country and volleyball on Oct. 1, with a maximum of two optional workout days a week. After the rollout, there will then be what school officials are calling a “live period,” when workouts can increase to five days a week before the season starts. The live period for cross county and volleyball is tentatively set to start Oct. 15.
If the rollout goes well, the tentative return dates for other sports are:
▪ Oct. 19 for swim, dive, basketball and cheer, with the live period starting Nov. 9.
▪ Nov. 9 for men’s soccer and men’s and women’s lacrosse, with the live period starting Dec. 1.
▪ Nov. 30 for football, with the live period starting Jan. 4.
▪ Jan. 4 for golf, men’s tennis, women’s soccer and softball, with the live period starting Feb. 1.
▪ Jan. 20 for baseball, women’s tennis, track and field, and wrestling, with the live period starting March 15.
Details are also being developed for when arts/band and other co-curricular activities will resume.
Athletes want to resume practice
The N.C. High School Athletic Association. suspended sports in March. The NCHSAA, which is made up of mostly public schools, allowed teams to begin summer workouts on June 15. But Wake has held off on restarting due to the COVID-19 numbers in the area.
A Change.org petition asking Wake to allow high schools to resume athletic workouts had nearly 1,600 signatures as of early Tuesday afternoon. The petition cites psychological and physical reasons for letting student-athletes practice at school-led events.
“The risk of a high school student dying from Covid-19 is <1%,” the petition says. “This is much less than other risks encountered by teens. If all of life’s Risk factors were required to be eliminated from high school activities, could athletics ever be brought back?”
The petition asks Wake to use a phased-in approach similar to what’s being used in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, the state’s second-largest district.
On Monday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg allowed cross-country and volleyball teams to begin offseason conditioning workouts, the Charlotte Observer reported.
The NCHSAA pushed back the start of high school sports from August to November. Cross-country and volleyball seasons begin with practice Nov. 4, first games Nov. 16 and will finish with state championships Jan. 23.
High school basketball will start in December, and football begins in February.
Safety guidelines will be used
Coe said that the release of the NCHSAA calendar made it possible for Wake to present the rollout plan. He said Wake will follow NCHSAA guidelines, such as daily temperature and health screenings of athletes and coaches and capacity limits for workouts.
Coe said all athletes will be required to wear face coverings when not actively participating in activities. He also said coaches can’t make participation in the skill development sessions mandatory.
Unlike high school sports, districts have complete control over middle school sports. Wake announced in August that it would delay the start of the middle school athletic season until at least January, the News & Observer previously reported.
Wake says it plans for all middle school athletics teams to play condensed seasons held sometime between January and May. The district says it will use the high school rollout to determine when to start middle school sports.
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 4:58 PM.
