From no sports last spring to fall sports in January, high school sports in Michigan is not done changing - mlive.com

Although 2021 is nearly here, the 2020 fall season for high school sports has yet to reach its official conclusion.

It is just one of many bizarre scenarios that have impacted the high school sports landscape since the coronavirus pandemic began wreaking havoc back in March.

But hope for a return to normalcy in 2021 continues to grow.

Thanks to a new coronavirus testing program made possible by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, there is hope at the end of the tunnel for all high school sports moving forward. The continued approval and distributions of vaccines has only heightened the optimism, although vaccinations for high school athletes will likely have to wait until vaccines are made available to the public, which will likely take months.

Although the pandemic is not over, Michigan High School Athletic Association executive director Mark Uyl is just happy to have a chance to conduct sports with more peace of mind now that mass testing is arriving for fall sports athletes.

“We’re excited to be a part of this pilot program and really looking forward to getting all the details in place,” Uyl said.

Schools with teams and athletes still participating in the football, volleyball or girls swimming and diving state tournaments will be able to conduct tests on coaches, athletes and team personnel three times each week. The tests are made available by the MDHHS at no charge to the schools or MHSAA.

“I really think that we’re going to be able to learn some things over the next four weeks with rapid testing,” Uyl said. “That’s going to be a benefit for schools being able to stay open in the next calendar year. If rapid testing becomes much more readily available, just think of what the implications could be for a sport like wrestling.”

Although Uyl is excited for this new development, the last nine months of dealing with the pandemic have conditioned him to not get too high or too low about progress and obstacles. Uyl, like everyone else, it just trying to focus on the finish line of the pandemic.

“I think there is reason for optimism,” Uyl said. “I think we just encourage everybody, especially athletes, to keep doing the right things. Wear a mask when you’re supposed to. Stay socially distant when you can. If we really want to get back to activity and play our games, we’ve got to do all the right things. That’s just not during the school day and practice, but it’s during the evenings and it’s on the weekends.

“I know we’re longing to get back with friends in those social gatherings, but at least in the next few months, we have to follow the lead of our government officials and continue to do all the right things that we have to do to really get us back to hopefully be able to play without any of these safety measures in place.”

Back in March, the spring sports season was canceled less than a week after official practice started. Although the summer months saw a substantial decline in coronavirus cases, the fall sports season had a fractured start, with some sports getting clearance to begin with restrictions while others – like football, volleyball and girls swimming and diving – had to wait.

Back in August, the Michigan High School Athletic Association announced the football season would move to the spring, only to bring it back to the fall in September with a shortened regular season and an extended postseason.

Also, over the summer, girls swim teams were swimming in outdoor pools and lakes because they were not allowed to be indoors at school pools. Volleyball tried to find local outdoor courts wherever they could. Now, the remaining teams and athletes in both sports have a chance to compete in the state January.

But going from completely canceling the spring high school sports season to having the opportunity to finish the fall season shows a massive change in how the coronavirus has been handled at all levels of society, for better or worse.

In the summer, Uyl made it known time and again that the MHSAA’s ultimate goal was to complete all three sports seasons during the school year. Despite the struggles, the MHSAA is still on track to seeing that happen.

“When you get up each day and that is your goal and your focus, it becomes easier to block out some of the other noise, so to speak,” Uyl said. “What I’ve learned in COVID is that every decision you make is going to be criticized. It comes at you from across the spectrum.”

Uyl said he has been criticized for being too conservative and too aggressive, along with every criticism in between. Both of Uyl’s children are three-sport athletes, including his son who is a member of the DeWitt football team that is still alive in the Division 3 football playoffs. His wife is a high school basketball coach. Basically, every decision Uyl has made has also impacted his personal life.

“This is what we do,” Uyl said. “It’s not a case of having one of your kids only play one sport. It runs the gamut and I think that’s been really good for me because I’ve really tried to fight for all three of our seasons as if my own kid was in the mix.”

With hope that the new testing pilot program can be extended to all athletes and students, it will be a gamechanger for Uyl and his staff.

“If we can get our winter and spring in as we’re currently thinking, we’re going to take a big sigh of relief,” Uyl said. “This has not been easy at any step of the process.”

A FUTURE OF NEW IDEAS

The term “new normal” is permanently embedded in the worldwide pandemic nomenclature. While the MHSAA’s various adjustments made to all sports during the pandemic have been a departure from what coaches and athletes are accustomed to, some of the changes might stick around in the post-pandemic era.

“This past fall, we allowed all of our spring sports to have 16 player-coach contact days in the fall, so out of season where they could actually have full-squad, out-of-season workouts,” Uyl said. “That will be something else that gets a lot of discussion moving forward.

“Even though you had to make decisions because of the pandemic – and really, we’re making them in a crisis mode – there are some things that might be a better way of doing business long term.”

Of the many adjustments the MHSAA made in 2020, extending the football state tournament by a week to allow all teams to qualify was the most prominent. In years prior, football teams automatically made the state tournament if they earned six victories. However, the MHSAA intended to implement a new playoff point system this fall, which offered no automatic berth. Only the top 67-68 teams in each of the eight state divisions with the most playoff points would make the tournament.

The new playoff point system was put to the back burner this season when the MHSAA decided to allow all teams to qualify for the tournament, regardless of win-loss record, because of the shortened six-game regular season. Although Uyl hopes to see a full nine-game regular season next fall, there is a chance the playoff point system introduced this year might get permanently scrapped in favor of allowing everyone in the tournament in future seasons.

“Should we have a regular season (next fall) and then a postseason where almost everybody is in (the tournament), what does that look like?” Uyl said.

Still, Uyl said all energy should be spent on completing the three seasons of this school year before any real changes should be considered.

“I think you need to get out of the fire a bit,” Uyl said. “Like any coach, the time when you want to make long-term decisions about your program moving forward aren’t during the middle of a current season or not in the first few weeks after a season ends. Sometimes, you can kind of get clouded with the day-to-day and not see the bigger picture … Looking long term, I think we have to get to get back to some sense of normal, whether that’s in the spring or in the summer as more and more people get vaccinated, whether we get closer to herd immunity.

“I’d love to make some decisions now, but I think we need to get through this and really get back in some normal times. Then you could really look back with a clearer head and, I think, make some better decisions.”

One of the positive changes Uyl has already noticed is how communication with athletic directors, coaches and officials has improved throughout the pandemic. With constant changes to season structures and protocols, mass communication between the MHSAA and its members has never been more important.

Uyl even noticed the advantages of having virtual coaches meetings in the days preceding a competition, rather than having the meetings in-person and on site before competition. In virtual meetings, coaches were more engaged and less distracted by the various responsibilities of gameday decision making.

“I think what last March has taught us is that communication is the most important thing that you do,” Uyl said. “We’ve tried to keep our schools in the loop at every step of the way. We’ve tried to be as honest and as transparent and as open with what our goals were and what our next set of plans were. We’ve just felt like, when you operate in an open way, things just go much more smoothly.”

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