The PIAA is giving the green light to schools to begin practices for winter sports this Friday across the state of Pennsylvania.
During Wednesday’s Board of Directors meeting, the PIAA approved a recommendation from its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee to move ahead with the start of winter sports practices on Friday “proceeding with an abundance of caution,” according to the committee’s meeting minutes.
“The SMAC emphasizes that since the impact of COVID-19 varies from county to county and district to district, decisions to start winter sports practices and/or competitions at schools must be balanced with respect to the public health interests in each community,” the minutes read. “As conditions for participation in winter sports allow, the PIAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee affirms its belief that STRICT ADHERENCE by schools and teams to school-adopted health and safety plans, CDC Guidance and PA DOH Guidelines provides a reasonably safe environment for participation in interscholastic athletics.”
Following the meeting, PIAA Executive Director Dr. Robert Lombardi said during a media question-and-answer session that the hope is that schools can begin to get in the necessary preseason practice before it gets too late in the season.
He noted that teams will require 15 days of practice before regular-season competition can begin and that the longer a team waits, the more difficult it would be for them to get in a complete season.
“If we’ve learned anything from the fall, the people that started earlier were able to handle interruptions easier than those that started late because they ran against time and they didn’t have any room in the schedule,” Lombardi said.
Concerns have emerged about the starting of winter sports as coronavirus cases continue to spike across the country and the state. Pennsylvania set yet another record-high with 6,339 new positive cases on Wednesday. Prior to October, the state had not recorded a single-day total higher than 1,989. Since the start of November, only once has the new case count been below 2,000, and since Nov. 10, each day has seen at least 4,000 new positive results.
Lombardi said that the rising cases are why the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee said schools must move forward with caution and why health and safety guidelines at the school, Department of Health and CDC should be followed. If schools do that, the PIAA believes the adherence will provide a “reasonably safe environment for participation.”
“That is further supported by the fact that we have not learned of any school-to-school or team-to-team spread of the virus through athletics,” Lombardi said. “We are not aware of any, and our Sport Medicine people, who have done extensive research and some of them not only are writing their policies for their health systems are not aware of any or have any research of such. So that’s why that consensus statement was made.”
The PIAA’s next meeting will take place on Dec. 9, coming prior to the start of competition in winter sports across the state. It has already released guidelines for return to competition for the season.
PIAA responds to new mask mandate
The Pennsylvania athletics community was taken aback when a new mask order from the state Department of Health said that masks must be worn during competition.
The order said that if athletes, coaches and spectators are indoors, a mask has to be worn at all times. If they are outdoors, they must maintain “sustained physical distance from persons outside of their household.”
For now, the message from the PIAA is to abide by the new mask order as it works to receive clarification, following Wednesday’s PIAA Board of Directors meeting. In the meantime, schools should contact their local solicitors to find out if there are any possible exceptions for teams or student-athletes.
The mask order will not only be in effect for the winter sports, but will impact those student-athletes participating in fall sports championships this weekend and next “if the schools decide so,” Lombardi said.
The Sports Medicine Advisory Committee is “very concerned,” Lombardi said, because of pre-existing exercise-induced asthma conditions, issues with proper oxygenation, possible retainment of carbon-dioxide and concerns that the mask could fall off and become a slipping hazard on an indoor basketball court.
Dr. Matthew Silvis, a sports medicine specialist with Penn State Health and a member of SMAC, said in an emailed statement that there are risks with wearing a mask during competition.
“Athletes engaging in high-intensity sporting activities, i.e. running, may not be able to wear a mask if it causes difficulty breathing. This issue has been recognized by the CDC,” Silvis said.
In an interview with PennLive prior to the mask mandate from the state, Dr. Patrick Mularoni, medical director of sports medicine at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, said that mask-wearing in sports is a “very controversial topic” and that organizations across the country have given varying responses to whether they should be worn during competition.
Mularoni said that “absolutely” masks should be worn when an athlete is not competing and that coaches should be wearing masks, but that it can be difficult for athletes during competition.
“Athletes should have the right to wear masks, although having the mask on may impede airflow and make the participation in the sport much more difficult,” Mularoni said. “Not necessarily dangerous, but more difficult.”
Lombardi said that there are exceptions to the state’s mask order that schools can examine. He cited section 3A in the face coverings order that states that one exception comes “if wearing a face covering while working would create an unsafe condition in which to operate equipment or execute a task as determined by local, state or federal regulators or workplace safety guidelines.”
Section 3B could also come into effect as it states “if a face covering would either cause a medical condition, or exacerbate an existing one, including respiratory issues that impede breathing, a mental health condition or a disability.”
Lombardi said: “We could see individual kids maybe even on a team some students maybe wearing them, some maybe not. But the board felt this assessment should be done by each individual school because they have not only their own health and safety plans, but they know the conditions of their students by the virtue of their completion of the CIPPE form for them to play athletics, so with their medical team at the local school could not only make team, but also individual athlete assessments.”
