OSAA Pushes High School Sports to February

The Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) announced earlier this week that the start of the high school sports season will be pushed back to February.

In a report from The Statesman Journal, practices for winter sports were slated to begin at the end of December before the decision to make the move. Now, after forgoing the fall athletics season, sports like cross country, soccer, and volleyball will begin practice on February 22 while winter sports are pushed to the backburner, the Journal reported.

“It’s a moving target,” OSAA executive director Peter Weber said in a release. “We needed to make a decision. I think the board made the right decision.”

Football, however, will begin a little earlier, on February 8, with a six-week regular season starting on March 1. Winter season sports like swimming, wrestling, and basketball, meanwhile, have been shuffled to the end of the calendar year to allow for enough time for indoor activities to be cleared by Oregon state health officials. The tentative start date for those winter sports is May 10 and will go through June 27.

The baseball and softball season will run from March 22 to May 23 with other sports like golf, tennis, and track and field running from April 5 to May 23.

For sports like football, soccer, volleyball, and cross country, the end of the season will be April 11. The Journal went on to report that individual team schedules have not been put together, and each season includes an “opt-in culminating week,” which is an option for possible postseason play.

“All of our conversations with the Oregon Health Authority, and following the news, it appears that the models are showing that things are going to get worse before they get better,” Weber said. “As we’re looking to provide as much time as possible to lower case counts — and get counties out of the extreme-risk level, if possible — we thought that this timeline made sense.”

To read the full report from The Statesman Journal on the potential start of the high school sports season in Oregon, click here.