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Rob Kiser | Miami Valley Today file
NJCAA announces pandemic plan
Fall sports move to spring, winter sports to start in January
Joshua Brown
July 14, 2020
PIQUA — Local high schools may still be awaiting official guidance as to what their fall sports seasons may look like.
But Edison State Community College got word of the National Junior College Athletic Association’s plans Monday night.
The NJCAA announced its plan of action for the 2020-21 sports year
Monday, moving its fall contact sports to the spring season and
delaying the start of winter sports until January due to the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic that caused the cancellation of 2020’s winter
tournaments and entire spring season earlier this year.
“Our greatest focus is and always has been providing the best
opportunities for our student-athletes,” Dr. Christopher Parker, NJCAA
President and CEO, said in a statement on the NJCAA’s website. “Through
a unified effort from our Presidential Advisory Council, the Board of
Regents, and leadership staff, our most recent plan of action provides
a path that keeps our student-athletes competing at the highest level
with proper safety measures in place. As we move forward as an
association, we will continue to provide opportunities for our
student-athletes, coaches, and all those involved with the NJCAA to be
safe and successful.”
According to the NJCAA’s plan, football, men’s and women’s soccer and
volleyball will all move to the spring season, with cross country and
women’s tennis retaining their originally-scheduled dates. Of those,
Edison State offers only women’s volleyball at the varsity level and
cross country as a club sport, meaning the Chargers’ volleyball team
will now compete in the spring of 2021.
The NJCAA’s winter sports will start in January, with the postseasons
mostly moved from March to April. Of the winter sports, Edison State
offers men’s and women’s basketball. The spring sports will remain
mostly intact, with only “minor adjustments to dates,” according to the
statement. In the spring, Edison State offers baseball and softball.
And the Chargers are on board for the changes.
“At Edison State, we totally support this decision,” Edison State
Athletic Director Nate Cole said. “We see the importance. We’re trying
to make everything work so that people can still play, but if you’re
not going to play in the fall, are you still eligible in the spring
since things got moved? There was a lot of unknowns until the NJCAA
made that announcement — and I think it’s a great plan. I really do.”
Cole also credited the college’s president for helping ensure the
Chargers’ athletic department has all the information and support it
needs during the pandemic.
“The big thing that we’ve got going for us at Edison State is our
president. Doreen (Larson) is amazing,” Cole said. “There’s been
constant communication, making good decisions. The real key to all of
this is the leadership of our president.”
With COVID-19 outbreaks scattered all over the country’s NCAA teams and
schools, as well as major college football conferences still working on
plans for their fall seasons, Cole liked that the NJCAA stepped forward
and came up with a plan now. And while the NJCAA’s plan does allow for
practices in the fall, as well as scrimmages between teams from
different colleges and communities, the Chargers plan on limiting their
scrimmage competitions to being intrasquad only.
“The NJCAA has kind of set the bar, and I’m real proud of that,” Cole
said. “Even though we’re not playing games in the fall, you can still
practice, meet with your players, do those type of things. You’re
allowed to scrimmage, but we made the decision not to. We’re just going
to have intrasquad competitions, stuff like that. We just don’t want to
push our luck.”
And, as Edison State’s women’s basketball team found out earlier this
year, everything can still change at a moment’s notice. The team
qualified for the NJCAA Division II national tournament for the first
time since 2007, only to see the tournament delayed and then eventually
canceled during the early stages of the pandemic in March and April.
“It’s always going to be fluid,” Cole said. “You’re going to have to
react to any type of change. It’s not even guaranteed that we’re going
to be able to play in January if something happens before that. It’s
completely unknown.”
Still, Cole reiterated that Edison State has contingency plans for
virtually every scenario — and that the student-athletes’ safety was of
paramount concern.
“For us, we made the decision for all the student-athletes when they
come back for the fall, we’re doing testing for everybody,” Cole said.
“Taking all the precautions, social distancing. We’ve got a great plan,
I think. We’re going to take all the athletes’ temperatures every time
they’re on campus for practice, run them through the symptoms
checklist. And then we’ve got plans for, if somebody does test
positive, what do we do from there, if there are multiple positives, we
can cancel or postpone the sport.
“We’ve got a good grasp on all of the possibilities.”
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