A South Carolina High School League committee has left fall athletes facing a fourth down and long, with time running out.
The Appellate Panel of the S.C. High School League (SCHSL) voted 5-1 to table an appeal from the Lexington County School District One, who brought back their plan on to flip seasons and have football in the spring of 2021 and baseball starting in September.
The decision basically was a punt for now as they will again meet Aug. 10 to potentially render a decision. Under the current SCHSL plan, football and other fall sports are supposed to start practice officially Aug. 17. Had the appeal passed it would have superseded what the SCHSL had passed. The Lexington plan originally failed by a vote of 14-2 July 15, the same day the SCHSL adopted its plan, which is currently in place still.
Appellate panel members felt they didn’t have enough information to decide on the Lexington plan Wednesday morning.
“We don’t have enough information on what is going to happen to have a decision today,” said Jackie Queen, appellate panel member.
Lexington County School District One Athletic Director David Bennett and Superintendent Dr. Greg Little re-presented their plan, which basically put low to moderate risk sports in the fall, such as girls golf, baseball and softball and higher risk sports such as football to start in January.
“If we are going to modify education, we must work to alter our sports seasons for safety,” Bennett said. “We feel our plan is the safest plan for all student athletes to have a season.”
Little added the Lexington plan minimized exposure and risk to athletes and coaches in their opinion.
“We have a short window of time to be ready to go,” Little said. “We believe low to moderate risk sports will be ready to go. We don’t want a repeat of spring.”
Bennett pointed out that the state Athletic Trainers Association backed the Lexington plan. Other associations such as the state Baseball Coaches Association backed the SCHSL plan.
The lone vote from the Appellate Panel to deny pushing the decision from the body on Wednesday came from Raleigh King.
“We spent an hour and a half talking about this,” he said. “So why make time to talk about it again. Let’s vote on this today.”
Board member Bob Davis said he was also ready to vote on a decision and not push a decision to another date.
“I didn’t want to wait,” he said. “I could have voted today. I have done my research and I have read the Lexington plan.”
Board member Andy Tweito said he didn’t want to delay a decision on the Lexington appeal either, yet he still voted to delay the decision until Aug. 10.
“I don’t want to kick the can down the road any more than anyone else,” he said.
The SCHSL executive committee will meet again Aug. 4 and 5 and if anything, new comes from that meeting regarding the SCHSL plan, any and all corresponding information will need to be given to the Appellate Panel for their Aug. 10 meeting.
Lexington School District One Plan
Under the Lexington proposal, the following sports would be played during the below listed dates. The number in parenthesis would be the number of athletic contests held in the regular season for those sports during the shortened season. There would be four 10-week periods for the school year to hold sports. The risk category – low, moderate, high – is also listed by the sports as well. The National Federation of High Schools Sports made the rankings of which sports are low, moderate and high-risk sports.
Fall (Sept. 21-Nov. 17)
Girls tennis (12)-Moderate risk
Baseball (16)-Moderate risk
Softball (16)-Moderate risk
Girls lacrosse (12)-Moderate risk
Girls golf (8)*-Low risk
Swimming (4)*-Low to moderate risk
Cross-country (5)-Low risk
*Girls golf and swimming would be held from Sept. 7 to Oct. 30.
Winter (Nov. 23-Jan. 29)
Basketball (girls and boys) (16)-Moderate risk
Spring I (Jan. 25-April 2)
Football (6)-High risk
Volleyball (12)-Moderate risk
Competition Cheerleading (4)-High risk
Spring II (March 22-May 28)
Boys soccer (12)-Moderate risk
Girls soccer (12)-Moderate risk
Boys tennis (12)-Moderate risk
Wrestling (8)-High risk
Boys lacrosse (12)-High risk
Track (5)-Low to moderate risk
Boys golf (8)-Low risk
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
