By CLAIRE CRUZ, Staff Writer
La Joya ISD made a big decision Tuesday to “cancel/postpone its participation in all extracurricular activities until Nov. 2” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused some speculation that other districts across the Rio Grande Valley would follow suit.
Brownsville ISD athletic director Gilbert Leal said the district is aiming for athletics to return early October.
“The only stance that we’ve taken here (at BISD) is the same one we’ve had. We’re going to consider coming back for athletics Oct. 5… we’re holding to that,” Leal said. “(Class) 5A and 6A statewide don’t even start until Labor Day weekend, ’til Sept. 7, so it’d be very premature for us to make any decisions right now when the rest of the state hasn’t even started yet.”
Harlingen CISD athletic director Robert Davies, Los Fresnos football coach/AD Patrick Brown and San Benito football coach/AD Dan Gomez also said their programs are planning on moving forward with fall sports. While Davies and Leal both expressed understanding for La Joya ISD’s decision, they’re hopeful they won’t be doing the same.
“We have tremendous respect for La Joya ISD and their decision makers. I believe they made the decision that’s best for them, and I wish them all the luck,” Davies said. “On Oct. 5 we’ll begin transitioning students back to campus… and that’s when we’re planning to begin athletics. We’re looking at everything and trying to make the best decision for our community, so we have plans in place for just about every scenario known to man. Right now, our plan is to continue on.”
Since their athletic teams won’t begin practicing for more than one month, Davies and Leal are making the most of the additional time they have to prepare. They’ve been communicating with athletic directors across the state and studying sub-5A schools that are already participating to get an idea of what’s to come.
But they noted that the situation is more dire in the RGV than other parts of the state, so they’ll continue to monitor the numbers in their communities above all else.
“We’ve been in contact with some people that we know at the 3A and 4A level… so we’ve been looking at what people have had success with and just trying to learn from them,” Davies said. “That’s my definition of wisdom, is learning at someone else’s expense, and we’re trying to get as much wisdom as we possibly can, asking a lot of questions.”
Questions about possibly moving fall sports to the spring or having RGV teams play only against each other have been brought up since the La Joya ISD decision, but both will create complications. Davies and Leal said they’d prefer not making those kinds of changes.
“Personally speaking, I don’t think that moving our fall sports to the spring is fair to the athletes that are in the spring. They’ve already been cut short last year, so in my opinion, it’s not in the best interest of our athletes here at BISD,” Leal said.
Davies said he’d prefer fall sports stay on schedule and follow UIL guidelines to keep their validity.
“There would have to be a lot of conversation on the front end before I would feel comfortable with a league where we’re really not playing for anything,” Davies said. “Texas high school football is built on competitiveness, and UIL athletics is built on competitiveness. If we’re not (playing statewide) we’re really nothing more than a recreational league, and I don’t know if our district would be behind that.”
The final say to have or not have fall sports ultimately lies with each district’s superintendent and school board, but Davies believes “it’s a decision that COVID-19 is making for us because our No. 1 priority is to keep everyone safe.”
If cases don’t consistently trend down over the next month and counties continue pushing back school reopening dates, RGV athletics could be in jeopardy.
“There’s definitely going to be a drop dead date on what we need to know, for sure whether we’re going to make this happen or not, and that’s probably, for us, going to be early October,” Leal said. “If we miss our date of Oct. 5, once we move a week or two past that, that decision basically takes care of itself. We’re going to probably wait until the very last second to see if we can get things off.”