The Green Light for Fall Sports after Superintendents meet with Sports Medicine providers

It’s been a long time waiting for High School Sports to return to the playing field and last week District XI Golf hit the links for the first time with a host of matches. From there, Tennis opened up play on the last day of August, with Cross Country, Volleyball, Field Hockey, Boys and Girls Soccer and Football all waiting their turn to begin play in September.

But, the process of having a fall season did not come easy. Last month, on August 6, Governor Tom Wolf caught everyone’s attention by saying that he highly recommended that sports be pushed back to January of 2021. From there, the debate between fans, players, coaches, administrators, and the PIAA got underway.

After meeting with the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, PIAA Executive Director Bob Lombardi announced on August 21 that Fall Sports would happen, but there would be a delayed start with the final decision being left to the individual schools across the commonwealth.

The final obstacle were the Superintendents and the School Boards voting to decide the fate of if student-athletes would play or not play. Together, each league and school received guidance from the two medical providers in the Region, St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network.

Their guidance was to help the Administrators understand all the pros and cons, so they could make their own decision on whether they would vote yes or no to proceed with a fall season. After careful consideration and guidance from the medical providers, the fall season received the green light from many schools throughout the East Penn Conference, Colonial League, and Schuylkill League.

EPC Vice President Fred Harris said, “From my perspective it’s exciting for all our kids in the EPC to have a path moving forward. Let’s get our schools open and keep moving in a positive direction. There is a lot of work ahead of us. We are excited to take that work head on.”

Schuylkill League President Steve Toth said, “As of now, we are moving forward with the PIAA recommendation to begin fall sports on time and hope to have our schedules in place by midweek. We are happy with the direction of the PIAA as It gives Athletic Directors, Principals, and Superintendents, some type of level playing field.”

Colonial League President Bryan Geist said, “The nice thing for us is, it allows individual schools to make their own determination when they’re going to be able to play. It’s all unprecedented uncharted waters or whatever phrase you want to use. It wasn’t to kick the can down the curb, but It was a decision that was made. Some people will agree with it and some people will disagree, but either way it gives us direction to move forward. “

While meetings happened behind closed doors at area schools; fans, players, and coaches were busy voicing their concerns with peaceful rallies at both Whitehall and Parkland High Schools. The sign “LET THEM PLAY” began to surface not only at nearby District XI schools but also through the state of Pennsylvania.

The Allentown School District was the last to make a decision, but a 7-2 vote favored fall sports moving forward, even though the District was only planning virtual education at this time. Dieruff Athletic Director Dave Stoudt said, “Our school board had a very tough decision to make. I think it is awesome that our student athletes will get a chance to compete. It would have been hard to tell our kids they can’t play, while the surrounding schools did.”

Meanwhile, new William Allen Athletic Director Randy Atiyeh, said, “It wasn’t easy, and I do feel for a lot of the school board members and a lot of the people that had to make some really tough decisions. Superintendent Thomas Parker touched on the fact that he didn’t feel it was right that our school board members got put in that spot and you know there’s arguments on both sides. I feel great for the kids and you know it was tough decisions for adults but at the end of the day that’s the sacrifice that that we had to make. Our job is to make tough decisions and to put in the tough work so that kids can ultimately go out and do what they love and do what they need to do. For me, there’s no better feeling than right now knowing that we did what we needed to do to give these kids an opportunity.”

District XI Chairman and Whitehall Athletic Director Bob Hartman has been at the forefront of all the conversations, as he is also the new Vice President on the Board of Directors for the PIAA. He said, “I think there’s more smiling faces across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania then there’s been since March before this started. We’ve gotten so many well wishes and excited kids in just a short period of time and we hope that they’ll be able to realize their dreams now. We want to be able to give them the opportunity to compete in the sports that they want to compete in and have a full high school experience.”

He added, “As an Athletic Director, someone who works in a school and as a former teacher and a former coach, we get our joy from kids realizing their dreams and doing what they want to do. We want to service these kids to be able to let them achieve their lifelong goals and so there’s nothing more important to me than to let kids do that. Hopefully, we can continue to do that and they can be out here so that they are happy, and their education is well rounded and it’s a part of their high school experience.”

Northwestern Athletic Director Jason Zimmerman, who is also the District XI and Colonial League Football Chairman, has heard every scenario and idea that was thrown out there on whether sports should start or not. He said, “The bottom line is you need to respect everybody’s position. I mean it’s kind of getting ugly out there just in general in society if you don’t hold a certain viewpoint or you share viewpoint with, you know, somebody over here, that it’s getting crazy and ugly so I think a big thing is to respect everybody’s opinion.”

He added, “I’m not sure how far we go so the goal for me is let’s try and get these kids in competitions as early as possible because we don’t know what the future holds. Let’s get some contests in and then as flu season and the weather changes and the seasons change, we don’t know what’s going to come. At that point, we’ll address it so it’s really a day by day approach and live for the day and live for the moment.”

And with that, Sports are a go throughout all of District XI, which includes the East Penn Conference, Colonial League, and the Schuylkill League. Do we make it through the entire fall season-only Covid-19 can answer that?

Attached are both documents from St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network that were sent to all of the Superintendents as they evaluated their school decision to move forward with fall sports. D11Sports.com received these letters from a school official and has all the information that was provided by both medical providers, so the public can see everything that was included and understand what each of these Superintendents needed to evaluate before making their final decision.