Ready, set, go: Alamance County high schools gain approval from board to start workouts

The ABSS board of education unanimously approved a plan Monday that will allow for Alamance-Burlington system high school athletes to return to team activities as early as Wednesday for cross country and volleyball.

“It's up to each individual school, but if they feel the need at their school to start (Wednesday), they certainly could,” ABSS athletics director George Robinson told the Times-News on Tuesday, “provided there are some pre-screening questions that parents and students would have to answer. Obviously, there's some initial paperwork that we would have to receive before allowing them to start and we would have to get the message out. However, if some folks are a little bit ahead of the game, we certainly don't want to impugn them and say, ‘Hey, you got to wait on everybody else.’ So (Wednesday), they could start, but after speaking with (athletics directors) it’s probably looking more like Monday.”

The decision to proceed with sports activities comes a week after Robinson presented a plan to the board, which expressed concerns while not knowing a plan for other extracurricular activities without students on campuses for in-person learning.

More: High school sports seasons stuck in starting blocks after Alamance-Burlington board expresses concerns

“I think it was just reassurances regarding other extracurricular activities,” Robinson said. “For our presentation, it was just focused solely on athletics. But I think there were some questions about dance, marching band and other things that our kids are involved in that's critically important to the educational process. We were just focused solely on athletics. I think they got the answers that they were looking for, regarding those other activities, and I think their level of comfort, allowing us to come back, along with those other things, were reassured based on the meeting (Monday morning).”

In a meeting Monday afternoon, area athletics directors finalized starting points for team workouts for each sport, beginning with cross country and volleyball, the first sports slated to begin under the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s amended calendar. The NCHSAA set the beginning of official practices for cross country and volleyball for Nov. 4, with their first contests happening Nov. 16.

More: Alamance County high schools could have clearer picture for resuming sports activities

“For the most part, about a month out of the official tryout date is when their workouts would start,” Robinson said. “Probably the only exception would be football because the preseason training is a lot more extensive.”

Alamance County basketball and cheerleading teams can begin organized workouts Oct. 14 under the timetable set by county athletics directors. Football and swimming and diving can start Oct. 21, while boys’ soccer and lacrosse are slated for Oct. 28.

“Some of our venues are huge, and our schools and our campuses, so we have venue specific plans for each school about entry to campus, exiting the campus, staging areas in regards to taking temperatures and all of that,” Robinson said. “The first time is always scary, because we've never done it before, but I do have confidence in the coaching staffs and the athletic directors that they’re going to do it in a responsible way.

“Just like anything, like before a big game, you get nervous. Well, this is the big game and I think we're all nervous, but we're also excited, too.”

Boys’ and girls’ golf, boys’ tennis, girls’ soccer and softball can begin team workouts Nov. 11. Baseball, girls’ tennis, track and field and wrestling are the final sports to begin workouts in Alamance County, with those teams getting started Dec. 2.

“Just stressing to one another that we have to get this right across the district, and not just one specific school,” Robinson said of the meeting with school athletics directors. “We also want to be in alignment. Especially regarding student health and safety, we don't want to have one school out doing their own thing and five others following procedure and protocol. So basically, it was just a meeting to make sure that we were all on the same page in regards to protocols and procedures and (dates).”

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For all sports, the first three days of workouts will be spent exclusively on conditioning as athletes and coaches ease into a return with extensive safety protocols in place.

“That gives us a little bit of extra time for us to get everything in place in our venues to do our check-in and making sure kids are safe, setting up our sanitation stations,” Western Alamance athletics director Mike Pennington said. “Part of our deal is they all must have a mask and they all must bring their own water bottle. If they don’t have their water bottle and they don’t have their mask, we’re supposed to send them away.”

The timeline and precautionary measures are the work of months of collaboration between athletics directors at the six Alamance County public high schools, and aligns with the amended schedule of sports seasons set by the NCHSAA last month.

“We probably had seven or eight Zoom meetings,” Robinson said. “We’ve actually got together, maybe twice, because we felt like we would be more productive. We were better able to bounce ideas off one another.”

Alamance County’s guidelines for a return to athletics are more stringent in nature than those set by the NCHSAA, something Pennington said was part of a concerted effort by area athletics directors.

“I think part of our plan was if we went stronger than what the high school athletic association was doing, we were thinking that would help our cause to make it safer for our athletes and our coaches,” Pennington said, “and being able to allow our student-athletes and coaches to get back at it. That was the whole plan in a nutshell. We thought if we were stronger, our board would be more apt to start.”

Williams High School athletics director Todd Davis said: “We looked at counties around us that kind of went back to exactly what the state was allowing, and they may have had some issues or had some temporary shutdown or things like that. We felt like being a little bit more restrictive may help us cut down on those kinds of situations. We kind of took all the data, all the information we had, not just for Alamance, but for surrounding counties and similar counties, and kind of came up with the best thing that fit us.”

Workouts will be restricted to groups of 30 athletes for outdoor venues, as opposed to the 50 set by the NCHSAA. For indoor activities, the limit is 15 athletes, rather than the NCHSAA’s 25. Face coverings are mandatory when not engaged in physical activity. Locker rooms and weight rooms are to remain closed.

Athletes must register at AthleticClearance.com, where coronavirus screening questions must be answered and other medical information provided, in order to be eligible to participate. A pre-participation sports physical must be submitted to school athletics directors.

Physicals received on or after May 2 will be valid. If the physical was done between March 1, 2019, and May 1, 2020, that athlete will be granted a temporary extension to participate through the end of the current school year. Students who had a physical before March 1 of last year will need a new one.

This article originally appeared on Times-News: Ready, set, go: Alamance County high schools gain approval from board to start workouts