High school football coaches propose later start to season

With the number of COVID-19 cases continuing to rise in Southern Nevada, hope for an on-time start to the high school football season is dimming.

The Southern Nevada Football Coaches Association on Sunday sent a proposal to school administrators and Clark County School District and Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association officials hoping that it will provide options should the start of the season need to be delayed.

“It’s important that we reach out and try to work with the administrators to fight for a football season,” Liberty coach and SNFCA president Rich Muraco said. “We don’t want to just play a wait-and-see game and it gets to the point where it gets too late to have a season and they just cancel the season.”

Football practices are scheduled to begin July 30 with the heat acclimation period. The first games are scheduled for Aug. 14.

With football being labeled a high-risk sport, the state would have to be in Phase Three of reopening for modified practices to be held. Games can’t begin until deeper into Phase Three, after there has been time to collect data and analyze it.

The coaches’ proposal asks for a pause on the start of practice until Sept. 7, which would allow more time for the state to determine if it will be safe to play games. If the coronavirus numbers have decreased at that time, the first varsity games would be played Sept. 25, with the season shortened to a seven-week, six-game schedule. The playoffs would be condensed to three rounds, with state championship games on Nov. 28, one week later than the original plan.

Should the numbers not be conducive to starting practice Sept. 7, coaches are asking for the season to be moved to the spring. Practice would begin Feb. 15, with the first games on March 4. The number of regular-season and playoff games would be the same as the condensed fall schedule, with state championship games on May 8.

“We just want as (the coaches) association to have a plan in place,” said Basic coach Jeff Cahill, an SNFCA member who helped draft the proposal. “The COVID situation is hard to plan for. Things change from day to day. We want to do everything we can to give the kids a football season.”

NIAA assistant director Donnie Nelson said in a text message Sunday in regards to the beginning of all sports seasons that the association is waiting for an update from Gov. Steve Sisolak about the opening of the school year. Once that comes, Nelson said he expects “the wheels of high school sports will start turning quickly and things will happen … very soon.”

As of Sunday, 12 states, including Arizona, have delayed the start of the season, with a handful planning to move forward as scheduled. California is expected to make an announcement regarding its season this week.

Muraco said if the season isn’t going to start on time, he would like to see the summer strength and conditioning programs shut down. There’s no reason to put athletes and coaches and their families at greater risk, especially if there’s no chance of having games on the horizon, he said.

One of the reasons coaches are emphasizing the importance of having football is because it’s the only sport in which the school season is the only time a player has to get his performance on film and be evaluated for a scholarship.

Other sports, such as baseball, basketball, soccer and volleyball, have more year-round opportunities to show their ability to play at the next level.

“In a football player’s career, he may only play 36 games total,” Cahill said. “A baseball player may play 36 games in a month. If we don’t have a season because the virus doesn’t get better by the spring, we can accept that. If we don’t have a season because we don’t have a plan when we get into Phase Three, then we can’t accept that.”

The proposal mentions solutions to problems such as schools, particularly smaller ones, having a limited number of athletes should football move to the spring by suggesting a one-time waiver for them to be allowed to compete in more than one sport at a time.

It also addresses transportation concerns by asking that players be allowed to drive themselves to road games, thereby limiting the number of buses needed for each game.

“It all comes down to coaches working together,” Muraco said. “Every coach wants their kids to play, and we’re willing to work together to do what’s best for the kids.”

Contact Jason Orts at jorts@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2936. Follow @SportsWithOrts on Twitter.

SNFCA Proposal by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd