PIAA DEFERS START OF 2020 FALL SPORTS BY TWO WEEKS

The PIAA Board of Directors didn’t cancel fall sports Friday afternoon, but they did take an action.

A motion to move the start of fall sports back to Aug. 24 statewide was made by District-6 representative Bill Marshall and it passed with just two no votes during the afternoon meeting, which was held to decide if the fall sports season will continue under the PIAA’s recent Return to Competition guidelines.

“I’d like to make the motion to defer the start of all fall sports for two weeks to August 24, 2020, during which staff is requested to continue to seek a dialogue with the administration, the legislature and all athletic stakeholders to obtain clarification on the possibility of safely conducting athletic activities in conjunction with the start of the school year,” Marshall’s motion said.

Marshall

The highly anticipated decision came a day after Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf said Thursday that he “strongly recommends” moving all high school sports events until at least Jan. 2021.

During a media Q&A that followed the meeting, PIAA Executive Director Dr. Robert A. Lombardi was asked if the PIAA Board had discussed or would be willing to entertain moving forward against Wolf’s ‘strong recommendation to suspend fall sports until January 1st’ if no headway is made with dialogue with the Governor and his administration over the next two weeks. Lombardi said, “At this time the board was not ready to go against the recommendation and instead decided to try and further discussion with hopes of change.”

Lombardi

Does that mean, if the governor says his mind will not be changed, the PIAA then ultimately goes along with that recommendation? That is a key question. It should be an interesting two weeks while hundreds of thousands of student-athletes now wait for an answer.