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The global athletics of New Jersey’s best schools has had an effect on the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the school’s most important basketball tournament approached, the New Jersey State Intersteel Athletic Association, the state’s main sports governing body, was forced to avoid the tournament before the organization’s championship stage.
At that time, he stopped the spring season for a week in practice.
While the NJSIAA held out hope of restarting a limited schedule for spring, this was reduced on May 4 when Gov. Phil Murphy announced that schools would remain closed for the rest of the school year.
The NJSIAA has since allowed summer workouts under set guidelines and has set a timeline for the start of fall competition to begin Oct. 1. But concerns about a second wave still loom over the 2020-21 school year.
In the last state combat in Atlantic City, NJSIAA leaders were already executing contingency plans if the virus spread to New Jersey.
But the closure of Rutgers University proved to be the big turning point for the NJSIAA. When Rutgers closed, it meant that the NJSIAA did not have a logo for its basketball organization championships.
You can say that the NJSIAA waited too long, because it may have concluded the state basketball tournament after the sectional finals, giving the team the same break point. Instead, the league decided to play matches against the enthusiasts on Wednesday, March 11, and then played a handful of organization semi-finals the next day without enthusiasts and uncertainty.
Hackettstown High School withdrew from the tournament and faced Ramsey in the Group 2 semifinals that night, and Manasquan withdrew before his attack on Camden.
As soon as the game ended on Thursday, the NJSIAA finished what was left of the winter season, canceling one of its best moments of the year: the Champions Basketball Championship.
The resolve to cancel the spring season was not easy, however, as New Jersey saw its number of instances grow and schools remained closed, it had no choice.
The biggest challenge that harms the establishment of athletics in high school has been communication.
The NJSIAA has been open and consistent with messages from the fall season, broadcasting press releases almost once a week. But when Governor Murphy sets the rules for youth sports and recreational sports, others naturally confuse the two and wonder why youth sports have another set of schedules to practice and play than high school athletics.
“I stay telling other people in my domain and school how we can’t practice when they go into youth games and I say they don’t respond to anyone at the young point as we do at the point of high school,” said Passaic Valley Athletic Director Joe Benvenuti. “We stick to the Ministry of Education, and if schools are not open, the game will not happen.”
People expect knowledge to explain why their 10-year-old can play football right now, yet his 16-year-old doesn’t exist, and that doesn’t exist. The misleading answer is that youth/leisure systems have another duty and are more concerned (municipal groups sometimes do not reduce children, in fact elite club groups do), while the NJSIAA is a combination of participation, festival and education.
A more important question is: why do youth groups start when major school groups aren’t?
Over time, Murphy has done a great job of explaining the difference between youth sports and the school’s most important sports.
“Regulations go in other directions,” said Stan Fryczynski, president of the North Jersey Inter-School Conference. “Ours are much stronger.”
Coaches, players and athletic administrators regularly deal with the same issue when asked what worked. There’s never been a scenario like this before, so it’s for comparison.
Yes, Hurricane Sandy destroyed New Jersey in October 2012, forcing the fall schedule to be replaced and delayed for a week, however, there has never been a full season to be missed.
“When you look at what college sports did and the pros, I think high school sports got it right,” Benvenuti said.
In the midst of the crisis, the NJSIAA revised its control structure. General Manager Larry White resigned and was replaced by the organization’s first female leader and operations leader, Colleen Maguire, in early June.
The former South Jersey basketball star was plunged into a difficult situation, but kept her cool. He posted a seven-minute YouTube video, probably the first NJSIAA leader to do this, explaining that the fall season would be different.
She argued that the organization’s purpose for fall athletics would inspire participation than competition. This is an attractive resolution because the loss of profits from state tournaments can cried out the NJSIAA in the coming years.
The NJSIAA transparent that if it played a role in the resolution process, the final resolution to cancel the spring season would be made through Murphy and the Department of Education. And as long as there’s no school in session, there can’t be spring sports.
The NJSIAA has shown that it is making plans for a shorter spring season and has even taken the unprecedented resolve to say that the season can drag on to June 30 (the last official day of the school year) if necessary.
Locally, many of the best schools have done their best to honor seniors who missed their final athletic season at the top schools. There is a motion to remove the darkness from the boards in cities with the number 20 for the 2020 promotion.
The Last Dance World Series gave the school’s best baseball groups the chance to participate in some games in a tournament format, avoiding NJSIAA rules by qualifying as an occasion for young people. While the occasion was not a problem, some groups abandoned due to considerations of the imaginable exposure to COVID-19, at least providing some fencing and an opportunity for baseball players.
Everyone interested in the school’s most important sports already thinks about what to do if a wave comes up at the moment.
“This is uncharted territory for all aspects of society,” said Rutherford athletic director David Frazier, who is also chairman of the NJSIAA Sports Advisory Task Force. “I think everyone thinks again and looks at what he painted well and what he wants to take a step forward and take a look to avoid what he didn’t paint well and accentuate what he painted.”
Issues have already arisen. Ramsey High School stopped football workouts after three days due to concern of a possible COVID-19 exposure.
The questions that still want to be answered are: what happens if an athlete is positive and how long quarantine lasts? If we enter the fall season and a player or coach gets sick, does he have to sit his whole team for two weeks? And if we play games from time to time, will the belligerent parts of this team be absent too?
Currently, there is one district-by-district strategy and some will take it more seriously than others, increasing confusion.
The question of whether or not winter sports will be a case for the total dominance of the best school sports. Outdoor sports in the fall are one thing, but the NJSIAA sponsors wrestling and basketball, two of its most popular (and profitable) sports in winter.
“I’m afraid of death, ” said Benvenuti about the struggle. “It’s the biggest touch you can have in a sport. You breathe on each other. I don’t think we can during the winter, where there are some sports we can play and others can’t.”
The NJSIAA will probably be forced to move some sports in the spring, perhaps creating a design where each season lasts two months. Even if this does not materialize, it will depend on the organization to show that it has a plan if the virus remains stubborn.
There’s no way to host a sports festival without one hundred percent accuracy in testing and the ability to get quick results. The overall sport of high school has some benefits, as schedules can be shortened and travel can be limited, however, the essence of the festival means meeting face-to-face with your opponent. The concept of this remains frightening.
Darren Cooper is a high school sports columnist for NorthJersey.com. For full and live scores, the latest news and research from our Varsity Aces team, subscribe today. To get the latest news directly in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter and download our app.
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