Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Board President, Toni Corona, was up to her eyeballs in meetings and guidelines when I caught up with her Wednesday morning. My goal was to further understand the process they are going through and the timeline for when they will make a decision on Fall sports. She walked me through the next week's timeline.
The timeline is a quick turnaround.
The Football Reclassification Committee will meet Thursday July 30th to discuss reclassifying football due to the fact that many school, like the 3A North, for example have already canceled Fall sports and the seven Tucson area districts who are not letting teams even workout. This means the schedules that we've currently seen may change.
The surveys that were sent out to all Arizona high school administrators are due back to the AIA on Friday July 31st. These surveys will better help the AIA see the plans of all of the schools to better make a decision.
The AIA staff will then present the survey results as well as feedback from state and regional meetings to the AIA crisis team on Tuesday, August 4th. They will compile their suggestions and present them to the AIA Executive Committee on August 5th. Corona said that she anticipates the Executive Committee making a decision that day.
The fall sports safety requirements aren't set yet but Corona did say that at this point they have not had any conversations about having fans in the stands for games. AIA Sports Information Coordinator, Seth Polansky, has previously said the AIA will most likely leave that decision up to local health and safety officials.
Corona said the August 17th date is their Plan B for the Fall season. The AIA has a Plan C and D in the hopper. Plan C would be moving the start of practice into September and the start of the season into October. That plan would ultimately effect the Winter seasons which would most likely be moved to January in that plan. But ultimately the information from the schools in the surveys will determine that decision.
Moving football the Spring has been mentioned but has never been formally talked about according to Corona.
After nearly an hour on the phone with Corona I am no closer to knowing if there will be football in the fall but understanding the process in a way comforts me.
