The start of California’s high school sports season has been pushed back until at least December — meaning traditional fall sports, like football, won’t crown new state champions until next spring.
Today’s announcement from the California Interscholastic Federation isn’t a total surprise: As coronavirus numbers surge, Gov. Gavin Newsom handed down a directive last week that will likely force most public and private K-12 schools to begin the new school year online.
As L.A. Times high school sports guru Eric Sondheimer puts it:
The state’s governing body for high school sports might be giving the state’s more than 800,000 athletes their best opportunity to have a sports season in the 2020-21 school year.
Here’s the new calendar from the CIF, which affects both the normal fall and spring sports calendars.
California’s state high school football championships were supposed to be wrapped up by early December. Instead, they’re now scheduled to be held in mid-April 2021.
Athletes in sports like cross country, girls volleyball and boys water polo will see their November state tournament dates pushed back into mid-March.
Spring sports will be delayed as well. For instance, the state basketball tournament, normally played in March, has now been penciled in for June 2021.
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