Will coronavirus wreck North Carolina prep football? Here’s what state commissioner says
N.C. High School Athletic Association commissioner Que Tucker would like for high school fall sports practice to begin as scheduled Aug. 1, but she’s not sure that’s possible.
Tucker appeared on the Observer’s streaming TV show, “Talking Preps” on Monday to discuss how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting high school sports.
Last week, Tucker announced that spring sports were canceled, as well as the 2020 state championship basketball games, which had been postponed last month. And even though several states in the country are beginning to reopen and North Carolina plans a phased reopening in May, Tucker is still wary about the future.
“If I look into that crystal ball and said, ‘OK, I want to start practice Aug. 1,’” Tucker said, “I need to know will spectators be allowed to come into games; because if we start fall sports on Aug. 1 and there are still social distancing rules, there are still rules about how many people can congregate in one place, then I think that’s problematic for our high schools.”
Tucker said high schools here are heavily dependent on the revenue generated by football fans — ticket sales, booster club revenues, concessions — and said that money helps fund the overall athletic budgets for more than 400 NCHSAA member schools.
“It’s by design,” she said, “that the association doesn’t get involved in the regular-season finances. They get all that money because we know that has to help fund everything ... I would like to be able to simply say yes, ‘We’re going to start on Aug. 1.’ Perhaps we could be looking at maybe September before we really can get to a point where we can say, ‘We’re good to go.’”
Tucker spent nearly an hour taking questions from the Talking Preps’ hosts.
Below are her answers, edited lightly for brevity and clarity. edited version of her answers.
You’ve had to deal with several major crises as commissioner. How difficult is this one?
Que Tucker: “It is frustrating because with every new crisis, it often times involves the stoppage of play, the stoppage of competition for our students. And high school athletics is about participation, about learning those life lessons and when our young people can’t play and can’t participate — and now with COVID, they can’t be with their coaches — those lessons are just really, really tough, and I just really feel for our young people.
“What I hope is people will understand and recognize that we make these decisions not for the staff, not because it’s easy, but we make them as we think about the young people that are involved and hope they recognize that what we are doing is in their best interest.”
Spring sports were allowed to play even after you announced the basketball state finals were postponed. Was it possible to play the basketball finals in that same window?
“We had the press conference on Tuesday. As I’m riding from the press conference, I hear that the Governor is declaring a state of emergency. Wednesday, we’re in conversation with the two host venues (North Carolina and N.C. State) ... and there were concerns that this is a very fluid situation.
“We get a call (Thursday) and they say the game is canceled. That was Thursday at 12 o’clock. To try to turn around on a dime (would be hard) and which high school do you use? Wake County had already said nobody could come in because by now Wake County had five-to-six cases (of COVID-19). To think we’d be able to turn around and play those games on Friday night at a high school just couldn’t happen, and that never entered our minds. We already knew we were going to suspend spring sports. How are you going to find a school anywhere that is going to say, ‘We’ve opened our doors, you come on in and play?’”
So eight boys and eight girls teams qualified for state finals after winning Eastern or Western Regional titles. Will they be named state champions or regional champions?
QT: “That’s going to be a decision for our board to talk about (Tuesday). There’s this idea out there that we had already, as a staff, said ‘OK, they’re going to be co-champs.’ I’m not real sure where that ever came from. That sentiment is out there. But we also have other side who say, ‘You can’t be a co unless you played the game.’ Do we get rings? Are the rings going to say, ‘We’re state champs?’ We’ll discuss it as a board and try to make a decision.
“If you guys go back and look in our archives, there were instances where we were unable to play state championships. We ended with regional championships and ended the season in that way. I’m just not real sure where the board will land on what we need to do.”
Will there be high school football camps and 7-on-7s once North Carolina reopens this summer?
QT: “I think people have the forgone conclusion that once school is done that it’s going to be business as usual. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think the 7-on-7s and the camps, and those kinds of things, are up in the air. As I’ve been on calls with other executive directors across the country, we’re all concerned abut fall and what fall is going to look like.”
How will eligibility be determined after all the remote learning? Will it be a clean slate for everyone next year?
QT: “The state board met last weekend and made some recommendations ... The state board has said, ‘Yes we’ll try to give just about everybody a free pass,’ but there are some (things) we need to talk about and then we’ll put all that out.”
Could football be played this fall with fewer fans, maybe 500 fans per side, if social distancing is still in place or still a primary concern?
QT: “If the Governor were to say, ‘Well, we can allow 500 spectators on the visitors side and 500 on the home side,’ then I think yeah that’s possible. I think then obviously you’ve got to have the cooperation of the community and everybody involved. Who are the 500 that get to get in there?”
What about playing football in the spring and moving some spring sports to fall?
QT: It’s certainly something we can talk about. In the south, we’re part of Section 3. Those states are Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana. We are going to be on a conference call Thursday and one of the things on the agenda is coming out of COVID-19 and how do we move forward? I’m sure that will be something that we can talk about. At this point, I have no idea what that could look like. Would you play it all in the spring?
“How do you do that? Are you looking to play your state championships at UNC and at N.C. State? Would we have to go back at playing at the home of the higher seed? Do you take all fall sports and put those in spring? ... We’ve had a couple coaches (email) and say, ‘Have you guys thought about playing football in spring and take soccer and put it in the fall?’ We’ll throw it out there and see what our board would say. Those kinds of decisions would have to be made pretty quickly and you don’t even know what you can do in the fall.”
What do you say to spring sports athletes who lost their seasons?
QT: “One of the things I would say to young people today: Yes, go ahead and feel bad; go ahead and cry because your season was taken away ... But you cannot take away the relationships you’ve built. You cannot take away the opportunities you’ve had, and just use those as a springboard to the next chapter in your life. Life is a journey. It’s not a destination.
“Don’t look at this as, ‘I got to this point and now it’s all over.’ This is a stop along your journey. And even though the stop itself was not what you wanted, now how do you use this as you continue your journey? I believe that our senior class of 2020 will rise to the occasion and some of these young people will go to to do great things and it will be the result of having been involved in our programs and having overcome this COVID-19 crisis.”
