Jul 17, 2020 4 min read

A good game plan, any coach will tell you, is necessary to achieve success.

Game plans take time to devise, teach and implement. They need to be strategic, easy to follow and adaptable to unforeseen circumstances. They are often the difference between winning and losing.

Coaches, especially those in football, live by the game plan. Many of them write their game plans on road-sized signs that hang around their neck or are attached to their belt.

The PIAA could take a lesson from these coaches. We are now 22 or 23 days – depending on which day of the weekend you’re reading this – away from the start of high school football camps in Pennsylvania.

To put this in football terms, the offseason has reached the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter. And the PIAA still doesn’t have a game plan for its schools or athletes in fall sports.

While Pennsylvania continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, the PIAA – the governing body for high school athletics in this state – announced Wednesday it intends to stay the course and keep fall sports seasons on schedule.

But, how? How do you enforce social distancing guidelines in football? In volleyball? In cross country? In locker rooms?

Will coaches, athletes and officials be required to wear masks? What has changed from a health standpoint – other than we know the value of social distancing and face coverings – since the PIAA shut down its basketball championships last March and canceled the spring sports seasons?

The status-quo attitude of the PIAA is puzzling but somewhat understandable. After all, the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Gov. Tom Wolf’s office will have the ultimate say on if high school sports can begin in the fall. But not laying out a game plan for how a season is to be handled makes the PIAA look like it doesn’t want to be the bad guy and have to cancel or delay another season – not when another organization can do the dirty work.

While coronavirus case counts continue to spike throughout the country, some states have opted to make changes to their fall sports seasons. New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia have pushed back the start of fall sports by various lengths. The District of Columbia has moved fall sports to the spring. Virginia is considering three options for fall sports, none of which includes playing football in the fall.

Ohio has opted for a similar strategy as Pennsylvania. Or is it the other way around? High school football in Ohio is scheduled to begin with a heat acclimatization period Aug. 1, and several local athletic administrators told me last week the PIAA typically follows whatever Ohio does. Ohio could be a 10-day test pattern for Pennsylvania high school sports.

PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi has stated Pennsylvania is committed to playing fall seasons as scheduled, even if they end up being shortened to as little as 25% in some districts.

So what happens if a football player tests positive for the coronavirus after the season has started? Does the entire team self-quarantine for 14 days and forfeit its next two or three games? Does the entire student body go into quarantine? Does the opposing team from the previous week quarantine? Is the season over? Can the season suddenly be moved to the spring? These are questions for which the PIAA has provided no answers. One local football coach I spoke with within the last week joked about it being possible for his team, or any team, to win its conference title without playing a game. Just catch enough opponents while they’re in quarantine and the title is yours.

Lombardi has consistently said flipping fall and spring sports is not being seriously considered by the PIAA. That’s simply foolish. Kids are currently playing baseball, softball and golf – the latter is a fall sport in Pennsylvania – with modified rules and could easily be done at the high school level this fall. Other low-risk sports, such as tennis, could be played in the fall.

Moving football to the spring makes much sense, if only because it allows more time to defuse the virus, develop a vaccine and create a better chance at having a full season for the kids – you know, the ones who need to be given a game plan on how fall sports seasons are going to be handled.

Sports editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com.