West Virginia has set a tentative schedule to start allowing practices for school athletics, but the date is not set in stone and depends on COVID-19 trends.
The Aug. 17 date for practice is two weeks later than the original date. The date on which games can be played depends on the sport because different sports require a different number of practices before it’s safe to play, according to Bernie Dolan, executive director of the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission.
Golf, which requires the fewest amount of practices, will be ready for competition Aug. 24. Volleyball, cheerleading, cross country and soccer will be able to have competitions Sept. 2.
Football will be allowed to begin Sept. 3, which is the Thursday before the start of the school year Sept. 8, which Gov. Jim Justice also delayed.
Dolan the commission will put additional restrictions on schools to combat the spread of COVID-19, which can include some forms of social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing and limits on attendance.
“We ask you as the community, if you want this, you have easy things to do,” Dolan said. “You can be a good role model and do it and put your mask on when you’re in public.”
Justice said children want to be able to play sports, and the state wants to do so in the safest way possible. He said to hope and pray the state will be able to go along with this schedule.
“Sports gives us so much … and at the end of the day, they teach us so many life lessons. And just to tell it like it is, sports are an enabler in a lot of ways that it helps us to retain and keep kids that we may very well lose if we didn’t have them,” Justice said. “They’re important to our communities, and we love them in every way, and they bring us together and it means so much.”
If the trends look worse or the same as they do now, Justice said the state might have to push the start date back, but he said the state needed to establish some sort of plan to get sports going again.
