ANALYSIS

There comes a point in time where the hard decisions have to be made as far as the high school spring sports season goes in Idaho.

The good people at the Idaho High School Activities Association, including executive director Ty Jones, know and understand they are in a battle with Father Time at this point, and they’re not winning.

So the announcement Tuesday that the IHSAA technically is extending its mandatory suspension/postponement of all activities by 15 days, from April 5 to April 20, might ring hollow and feels more like they’re kicking the can down the road.

While the technicality of it falls in line with what Gov. Brad Little mandated last week with his “stay-at-home” decree as well as the state’s board of education ruling March 23 that all schools would fall under a “soft closure” until April 20, most everyone understands the IHSAA had to make this move.

But Tuesday’s move really wasn’t newsworthy, it was inevitable. It was kind of understood all along once Gov. Little and the BOE made their decisions, there was no way the IHSAA couldn’t follow suit.

Now, officially, it puts the spring sports season in jeopardy. But in reality, it was that way a week ago. In fact, Jones admitted as much.

“We’re honestly hoping (the spring season is) not (in jeopardy),” Jones said in an interview with the Tribune on March 23. “But things don’t look good. We’re going to do everything that we can within reason to try to have activities this spring.

“It is pushing the envelope.”

But doing this in a piecemeal approach probably has frustrated more people than it has provided clarity. Some have taken to social media to vent their frustrations. Others have used it to plead to give the athletes a chance to get back on the field.

A prime example of this is a petition that was started by a student in the Boise area on Change.org to the IHSAA that would allow athletes to compete in as much of a season as possible. The goal is to get a total of 10,000 online signatures, and through late Tuesday, a total of 8,873 people have signed the petition.

While this is a noble effort and definitely one to be commended, because it was started by a student-athlete for student-athletes, what this also does is miss the mark completely by stating that “the main goal should be to stay healthy and do everything necessary to end this pandemic.”

Unfortunately, we don’t have the testing capabilities yet in the state of Idaho to ensure that all athletes would “stay healthy,” during this situation. According to the coronavirus.idaho.gov website, the total number of people who have been tested in the state is 6,596. That’s in a state that has 1.754 million people living in it. So while this person’s heart is in the right place, this also is without a complete understanding of what personal distancing means right now.

Even athletic directors want the athletes to play but know their hands are tied because the situation is so unique.

“We’re just dealing with unknowns,” Lewiston High School athletic director Corey Williams told the Tribune. “When you are dealing with that, you just have to err on the side of caution. Our No. 1 priority is keeping the kids and public safe.”

On March 12, Jones told the Tribune the decision to continue playing the spring sports season would be left up to the local districts. It was at this time that officials in Washington were taking some steps to cancel events as that state was the first area in the United States to become ground zero for the COVID-19 outbreak. Most of the western part of that state, in particular the Seattle area, was being hit hard by the virus.

The next day, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee closed schools for around 40 days, which put a halt to any activities. The expiration date on that decree is April 27.

It wasn’t until March 17 that Jones and the IHSAA imposed a three-week shutdown of all high school athletics and activities in the state, with the first available date to come back April 6.

Then came the news Tuesday, although it was a foregone conclusion thanks to events in the past week.

Of course, things are changing by the hour. They also change depending on which website you go to.

In Idaho, there are 525 reported cases of the coronavirus, with nine confirmed deaths, according to state’s website at 5 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday. In the United States, the Center for Disease Control’s website has reported 163,539 cases, with a total of 2,860 deaths. According to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine website, the number of cases in the U.S. climbs to 189,510, with a total of 4,076 deaths, as of 9:30 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday. Coronavirus task force leaders Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci painted a grim picture of where the U.S. could be heading during the task force’s Tuesday media briefing, stating that anywhere between 100,000 and 240,000 people could die from the virus, and that is with mitigation.

Every state high school association across the country is grappling with this issue. For instance, in Ohio, where there has been an accelerated amount of testing, the CDC reports there are 1,933 cases. That state’s athletic association canceled their state winter sports tournaments Thursday and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday that all school buildings, which were closed through April 5 and were continuing with distance learning, now are closed through May 1. In that state, if buildings are not open, no interscholastic athletics can take place.

That wasn’t necessarily the case in Idaho. But with Tuesday’s news, the IHSAA now is in lockstep with the governor and the board of education.

But are they behind the curve? That’s the question. It’s nothing against anyone at the IHSAA, in general, and Jones, in particular, who has taken great pains to be as open and transparent as possible throughout the situation. They’ve done an outstanding job of keeping all those who need to know in the loop on the developing situation.

Unfortunately, they’re running out of time to make a decision. They’re doing the best they can under the circumstances. But it’s crunch time.

Walden may be reached at (208) 848-2258, dwalden@lmtribune.com, or on Twitter at @waldo9939.