It looks like the high school spring sports seasons will end before they even had a chance to begin.
On Monday, during his regular COVID-19 update, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that schools would continue to utilize remote teaching for the remainder of the school year, leaving buildings and facilities closed during that time.
In previous updates released by Ohio High School Athletic Association Executive Director Jerry Snodgrass, it had been made clear that the potential to hold even an abbreviated spring sports season would be dependent on the governor’s office, stating that if schools would not re-open, sports would not be held.
In a memo sent Friday to member schools’ superintendents, principals and athletic administrators, Snodgrass said, “With yesterday’s (Thursday) news conferences, plans appear to be moving forward to ‘open up’ the nation and Ohio in ‘Phases’. It was stated that ‘schools that currently are closed should remain closed’. When this is confirmed by Governor DeWine and/or State Supt. of Schools DeMaria, we will be confirming the cancelation of spring sports as we have previously indicated.”
While the OHSAA had not officially confirmed that spring sports would be cancelled by late Monday afternoon, they did send out a tweet at approximately 4 p.m. that day stating they expected to send a memo to school administrators Tuesday based on Governor DeWine’s announcement.
Also in Friday’s memo, Snodgrass officially announced that the 7th and 8th grade state championships for track (originally scheduled for May 16) would be cancelled, due to there being an extremely small window to get qualifying times set.
Also cancelled was the OHSAA’s annual Scholar Athlete Program due to the cancellation of winter sports tournaments and the situation involving spring sports. Snodgrass said, “The combination of these two situations does not allow for the nominated seniors to maximize their scoring with the system that is used.”
