As expected, the California Interscholastic Federation announced Monday it will push back its fall season championships.
In a prepared statement the state's high school sports governing body said, "The CIF has determined, in collaboration with our 10 Sections, that education-based athletics for the 2020-2021 season will begin with a modified season of sport schedule."
The CIF split the sports into two "seasons," instead of three, with varying start and playoff dates. Included in the "fall" season is football, volleyball and cross country among others. The "spring" season includes soccer, wrestling, basketball, baseball and softball among others.
Football section playoffs would end April 10 and regional/state championships April 17.
The press release also said "Each CIF Section will release their own calendar to reflect regular
season starting and ending dates and Section playoffs. It is anticipated
that most Section start dates will commence in December 2020 or January
2021."
See a complete breakdown of the 2020-21 calendar below.
As of Monday morning, California is the 12th state to announce it will push back its fall season, joining Arizona, Mississippi, New Jersey, New
Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington
and West Virginia.
On June 12, the CIF gave itself a July 20 cut-off date to determine
the direction of the fall season. On Monday, it kept its promise.
California
is one of two states in the country — New York is the other — run by a
federation and not an association, meaning its 10 local sections run
somewhat independently from the CIF. Those 10 sections, organized
geographically, hold separate playoffs with the winners or finalists
advancing to CIF Championships. The CIF holds regional or state playoffs
for nearly all sports, except for baseball and softball.
Most of those 10 sections plan to make fall plan announcements throughout the day, including the Southern Section which is home to football powers Mater Dei (Santa Ana) and St. John Bosco (Bellflower). The Southern Section released its
new 2020-21 schedule that included football practice beginning on Dec. 14 and first games on Jan. 8.
The Northern Section announced its plan to keep the fall and 2020-21 season as planned, meaning teams in those sports won't be eligible to play for state championships.
Story.
Of the other states to push back, only New Mexico and Virginia currently plan to move many if not all its fall sports to the winter or spring calendars. The others have simply pushed the fall season back 2-4 weeks, including the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS). The University Interscholastic League, which governs almost all of the public schools in Texas, has not announced plans to change its fall season to date.
The District of Columbia State Athletic Association also has postponed interscholastic activities until January 2021.
With 824,709 student athletes, California ranks second only to Texas (825,924) in high school sports participants, according to a 2019 National Federation of State High School Associations survey.
According to numbers through Saturday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California ranks second in the nation with 375,363 COVID-19 cases behind only New York (407,972) and ahead of Florida (333,201) and Texas (317,730). The disease, as of Saturday, has killed 7,595 Californians, compared to residents of Florida (4,895) and Texas (3,865). New York City alone has lost 23,400 residents to COVID-19.
St. John Bosco takes the field in 2019.
File photo by Louis Lopez
