High school student/athletes in West Virginia who choose the virtual option as their classroom setting this semester still will be permitted to participate in football, cross country, soccer, cheering, golf, and band, according to Bernie Dolan, the executive director of the WVSSAC.
Many county school districts in West Virginia currently are offering the option of in-school coupled with online learning, but parents in most Mountain State counties also could choose distance-learning only even if their child is the star quarterback.
“That student will certainly be permitted to play football or any other sport their high school offers,” Dolan confirmed. “Right now, if you are on the roll as a student who attends at least four periods of school per day, then you are eligible to participate.
“I do anticipate a lot of parents to take the virtual school route, but their children will still participate in the extracurricular activities,” he said. “I believe it’s a lot harder to socially distance in an in-school environment than it is while playing sports. You’re outside, you’re not confined, you’re moving around, and you’re not close to other people most of the time.”
Why Not Flip Seasons?
Some states have decided to move sports scheduled to the spring semester, and college conferences have done the same. That’s why Dolan acknowledges everything could change at any moment of any day.
“We’re probably not going to flip the sports because, right now, it looks like in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are going to at least try to do our best as with the schedule at this point,” he explained. “If we were to flip the sports and something goes wrong with the coronavirus, then you have athletes missing two seasons of baseball, softball, track, and tennis.
“Our hope is to get as far as we can,” Dolan said. “We’re fortunate in West Virginia that we don’t have the population like the other areas that are getting hit really hard. I think that has been our saving grace to this point.”
Pushing Back
Dolan does not expect sports schedules to be pushed back for a second time, and he realizes as competition proceeds, infection issues could arise.
“And if they do, it will be up to the county’s health department to make decisions about high school sports,” he said. “That means we could be dealing with 55 different responses, but we’ll deal with whatever scenarios that we encounter. One thing we’ve all learned is that we don’t know what we have to deal with until we have to deal with it.”
Major League Baseball has suspended the Miami Marlins’, season Tuesday after 17 players and coaches tested positive for COVID-19, and the NHL will begin its “second season” this weekend. Each league, of course, will adapt as necessary, and the same is true with prep sports in West Virginia.
“I would have liked to start earlier than what we are, but we have the schedule that we have, so that’s when fall sports will be ready to start,” Dolan said. “Our hope is that we can get the sports schedules in and that we can have the playoffs like we usually do. Everyone just has to take the measures to remain safe.
“In football, the players will have the option of wearing a face shield while on the field, but when the players are on the sidelines, they will have to wear some sort of face covering, whether it’s a mask or a gator or something,” he explained. “And similar precautions will be in place for all the other sports in the fall, and then we’ll see where we are when the colder months are here.”
