CHSAA decision on resuming spring sports in wake of coronavirus won't come until March 30

Update: The Colorado High School Activities Association extended its original best-case date for resuming spring sports to April 18 on Tuesday in response to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis' mandate Monday to limit all public gatherings to 10 or fewer people for the and ordering the closing bars, restaurants, movie theaters and gyms and casinos for at least 30 days. This story was updated at 12:15 p.m. March 17 to reflect the change.

Spring high school sports in Colorado are on hold until at least April 18 because of concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. And no decision on if or when to resume them will be made until March 30, the director of the Colorado High School Activities Association said Monday.

That’s when the staff of the organization that oversees Colorado high school sports plus speech and debate and music competitions will reconvene its office staff and discuss options, commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green said.

CHSAA’s staff, like those of many businesses and other organizations, are all working remotely for at least this week and next.

“We believe that there will be more information provided to make the best decision about moving forward with spring activities,” she said Monday. “We have recent information from the (Centers for Disease Control) that gives us pause about moving forward, but we’re going to take our time until we reconvene on the 30th and try to have some type of decision or plan prior to the 6th.”

A declaration by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday pushed that date to April 18 to comply with the mandate to restrict all public gatherings to 10 or fewer people for the next 30 days.

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Blanford-Green said she has been in contact daily with the state health department, county health departments, school district superintendents and others across the state to stay on top of the latest developments, recommendations and mandates concerning the coronavirus and efforts to slow its spread.

Current recommendations and mandates in some Colorado cities and counties restrict gatherings to 10 or fewer people and for those who do gather to stay at least 6 feet apart from each other. It’s not feasible to conduct practices or competition with those restrictions in place.

Whatever decision is reached, she said, will be subject to change as new information, guidelines, advisories and mandates are issued.

“No decision can be final,” Blanford-Green said. “We have to continuously educate ourselves and be in the loop of relevant and accurate information, so that we can make the best decisions for our student-athletes, our workers, officials, and volunteers.

“We won’t put athletics and activities above the well-being and safety of all the people that are involved in educational-based activities and athletics. I would rather err on the side of caution than make decisions based on emotions and social pressure.”

CHSAA canceled the final two days of games in Colorado’s state high school basketball championships over the weekend as medical experts shared additional information on the importance of social distancing and the rapid spread of the coronavirus, or COVID-19. Quarterfinal games in the Class 1A through 3A tournaments were played as scheduled Thursday with attendance limited to a maximum of four guests per player.

Semifinals and championship games in all classifications scheduled for Friday and Saturday were canceled.

CHSAA distributes participation plaques each year to the schools of all teams that qualify for the state basketball tournaments, she said. This year, the organization will also present some sort of commemorative patch, medal or prize to each of the 1,600 or so athletes who were involved, Blanford-Green said, to recognize “their leadership and resolve during this time.”

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The decision to cancel those games started with the University of Denver, which was hosting the Class 3A tournament, telling CHSAA it could not hold games on its campus Friday or Saturday, she said.

But by the end of that night, the directors of the other three facilities that were hosting games – the Denver Coliseum (classes 4A and 5A), Budweiser Events Center (classes 1A and 2A) and the University of Northern Colorado (Class 1A) – were also expressing reservations about the continued use of their facilities, she said. Two of those facilities, the Denver Coliseum and Budweiser Events Center, were formally closed the following day.

Blanford-Green said she was in consultation throughout the day Thursday with a panel of more than 50 public health and safety officials, school administrators, educators, athletic administrators and CHSAA’s board of directors and staff before making the decision late Thursday night to cancel all remaining games at all sites.

“It was easy for people to maybe second-guess the decision, but our staff had been in communication the whole time with state health officials as well as facility directors, and we were all coming to the realization that this was no longer in the best interests of everyone involved.

“It’s not just the athletes. We have workers, we have officials, we have mothers and fathers that go home to their kids and, in this world of the unknown, it would have been irresponsible for the association to go ahead with the basketball tournaments knowing what we knew within a 24-hour period.”

That new information she and others were receiving that day also led to the decision to suspend the spring sports season until at least April 6. The best-case scenario for resuming spring sports in Colorado was extended to April 18 with the governor's mandate Tuesday. 

The NCAA, the governing body for most college sports in the United States, called off its winter sports and spring sports championships that day and, within 24 hours, individual schools and conferences canceled their spring sports seasons.

“In communication with the different entities that had been giving us advice along the way, they absolutely said that you need to prepare and not believe that this is going to be one or two weeks, and that prompted our decision to address the spring sports moratorium within the same time period, based on the information we had been given.”

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Kelly Lyell covers CSU and other local sports and sports-related news for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, follow him on Twitter @KellyLyell and find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. Help support Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a subscription today.