Kansas high school sports will play as scheduled this fall as postponement vote fails
Football, volleyball, boys soccer and all other fall sports will play as originally scheduled this fall.
The Kansas State High School Activities Association’s executive board voted 5-4 against a postponement proposal Tuesday, ruling athletics will soon begin amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision means practices will begin Aug. 17, and competitions will start as follows:
- Girls golf, girls tennis: Aug. 21
- Boys soccer, volleyball: Aug. 28
- Football, cross country: Sept. 2
- Gymnastics: Sept. 4.
The proposal, which had been set forth by the activities association itself, would have pushed back the start of Kansas’ high school football, volleyball, boys soccer and gymnastics seasons to Tuesday, Sept. 8, with the first football games being played Sept. 11. Girls golf, girls tennis, cross country would have started as presently scheduled.
If it had passed, the proposal would have next gone before the KSHSAA’s board of directors, which is comprised of more than 70 administrators from unified school districts across Kansas.
“There’s no good answers as we move forward,” KSHSAA executive director Bill Faflick said before the vote. ”In fact, we know that every decision that is made is right and every decision is wrong.”
Here are some of the other proposed changed that were not accepted Tuesday:
- Reducing the football regular season from nine to eight games for high schools and six games for middle schools and junior highs
- Elimination of all football jamborees
- Reducing the boys soccer regular season from 16 to 14 games for high schools and eight games for middle schools and junior highs
- Reducing the volleyball regular season from 36 to 30 competition points for high schools and 24 for middle schools and junior highs
During a National Federation of State High School Associations news conference Monday, it was revealed that 24 of the nation’s 51 state activities associations had made some changes to their respective activities calendars; several other states were still pending a decision.
Before Tuesday’s vote, some KSHSAA executive board members expressed their concerns about altering the state’s late-summer/fall sports schedules.
“We have to know ... we are competing against the club (sports) world,” said Jason Herman, an executive board member and Olathe North High School’s principal. “If we don’t keep the integrity of our high school sports, those kids will have other places to go.”
Although five executive board members voted against the proposal and four chose to support it, those four expressed their faith in the KSHSAA’s staff to make the best choice possible.
“I’m not smart enough to make this decision,” said executive board member Monty Marlin, the principal at Sublette High School. “They have taken the time, taken the effort, to look through this and come up with what would probably be considered by most to be a fair compromise.
“I’m still not convinced that we shouldn’t just August 17th get started and we just go like we are, but I don’t think there’s anybody in the room that thinks we’re not going to have issues once we get started.”
Last week, on July 22, KSHSAA posted sport-by-sport guidelines about how to move forward with high school and middle school sports in the state. Faflick said those guidelines will still be enforced.
Faflick also said he discourages schools from holding preseason football jamborees — exhibition competitions among three or four high school teams that were introduced in Kansas last season and were widely considered a success.
“But if a member school chooses to do those (jamborees), that is certainly their prerogative,” he said following the vote. “If they do so, they are given the freedom to schedule only one opposing team.”
During Tuesday afternoon’s meeting, Marlin, the board’s Class 2A representative, made a motion to vote on the proposal. Vice president Roger Perkins, the Class 1A representative and superintendent at Southern Cloud USD 334, seconded the motion.
Here is a look at how the KSHSAA executive board voted, in order:
- Vice president Roger Perkins, Class 1A, Southern Cloud: favored postponement
- Ken Stonebraker, Class 5A, Salina South: against postponement
- Secretary treasurer Shannon Haydock, Class 4A, Rose Hill: against postponement
- Deena Horst, Kansas Department of Education: favored postponement
- Jason Herman, Class 6A, Olathe North: against postponement
- Monty Marlin, Class 2A, Sublette: favored postponement
- Greg Rosenhagen, Class 3A, Cheney: against postponement
- Mike Kastle, Kansas Board of Education: favored postponement
President Alan Stein, middle school/junior high representative: against postponement
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 6:20 PM with the headline "Kansas high school sports will play as scheduled this fall as postponement vote fails."