GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The FHSAA Board of Directors has given the green light the fall sports season to start August 24.

The FHSAA board was also given a medical scenario statement from their own Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, chaired by Dr. Jennifer Roth Maynard and including 13 medical professionals, that recommended a start delay. SMAC’s concern was an increase in data showing COVID cases in ages 11-17 and, with no data available from in-school populations, the SMAC reported noted that, as of August 10, “only four of 67 counties had opened schools, therefore we have absolutely no new data from the impact of reopening schools on the COVID-19 infection rate...Due to the 2-14 day incubation period of SARS-Cov-2 viral shedding or symptom development, this data will not be available for review until schools have been open for face-to-face education and activities for 14-21 days at a minimum.”

SMAC’s recommendation was to delay the start of fall sports beyond August 24 “in order to evaluate crucial date of COVID-19 3-4 weeks after schools have opened.”

In an 11-5 vote by the Board of Directors in the board’s third emergency meeting on Fri., Aug. 14, after four hours of discussion, the FHSAA board moved to start sports on August 24. The five votes against included the board chairperson, Lauren Otero, the athletic director at Tampa Plant High School.

One statewide group represented to the board a petition of nearly 40,000 signatures in a LetThemPlay campaign.

According to Fleming Island High Athletic Director Travis Cunningham, the vote just started his plans to re-schedule games on all of his sports teams with access to other counties the primary sticking point.

“Right now, St. Johns County is able to play out of county and Duval County is having a meeting tomorrow (Tues., Aug. 18) to see when their start date is,” said Cunningham. “We lost the Clay and Lake Minneola football games right out with the proposed season start against Palatka at home on September 11. We also lost Tallahassee Godby at the end of the season because Leon County schools will stay within their county. If possible, we would like to reschedule the Clay game and they would to.”

Cunningham has schedules set up for his other fall sports; golf, cross country and volleyball, with slight changes in each. Volleyball will not travel to a high-powered tournament in Orlando and not have New Smyrna Beach High visit as one loss on the schedule. Cross country will open at the August 21 Cecil Field Preseason Classic in Jacksonville.

Cunningham, noting other sports will start September 9, said his school as well as most of the county have had good responses for the COVID restrictions of the summer training sessions.

“I think the kids and the staff understand what is at stake and have responded,” said Cunningham. “We have been kind of going with the flow of what is needed and has to be done to keep moving forward. The kids lost a bunch of time with this summer and don’t want to lose anymore. The county in general has been really good.”

At the FHSAA meeting, in a motion made by Carlos Ochoa, Athletic Director at Hialeah Gardens, it supported Option 1 as on the table with amending of including an opt-out date of September 18 for the state series, instead of the October 12 opt-in date for the state series as originally proposed.

After lengthy discussion including information from Dr. Jennifer Maynard from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, the chairperson of the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, explained that only one county in the state is under the five percent positivity rate for COVID-19 infections. That was not enough to sway the board to go with their preferred option of Option 3B.

Option 1 presented a plan to keep the August 24 start date with games starting the week of September 7, which would start with Week 2 games that would have been played on August 28. It also pushes the season end week back by one week to have it end on November 6 instead of October 30.

In this plan, all Kickoff Classics and Week 1 games would be outright canceled but could be rescheduled later on, if permissible. Also, the FHSAA noted on the plan that if a county has restricted travel to county-only, they would be required to notify the FHSAA and opposing schools on the schedule regarding this issue.

Another change in the Option 1 plan would mean no district games and the current classifications, districts, and regions would all be abolished and allowing teams to instead opt-out by the September 18 date. Classifications would be redrawn likely after the FHSAA’s Board of Directors meeting in September once it is known how many schools would participate at that point. It would continue with the current FHSAA rule of splitting the smallest 1/3 of the schools in Class 2A through Class 4A, while the Largest 2/3 of the schools going to Classes 5A to 8A. Class 1A Rural would remain unchanged with this plan.

And with all teams that commit to the State Series, all teams would earn a playoff spot.

As such, all teams that earn a playoff spot would be broken down by region with the playoff seeds being determined by a blind draw and home teams would be determined with a coin flip. Now if more than eight teams per region for Class 1A-4A or more than 16 teams per region in Class 5A-8A, the Week 11 game would become a play-in State Series game.

Also noted was that if a team is currently independent, they will remain independent and teams that opt out of the State Series or lost in the first three round of the playoffs, they may play games up to Sat., Dec. 5, which would allow teams to make up games to get to a 10-game total.

The Board of Directors also voted 10-6 to recommend a COVID-19 waiver in the EL3 form package, but not require it while also voting 16-0 to require watching a safety video on COVID-19 and produce a certificate showing they watched it as part of the action items and new business that was brought up after the main vote.

Bobby Johns, Wewahitchka Athletic Director and Head Football Coach was also recognized for his service as the departing Board President by FHSAA Executive Director George Tomyn.