RHSAA commissioner touts school division decision on fall sports

The commissioner of the Regina High Schools Athletic Association commended the “middle approach” school divisions took to sports this fall, balancing safety with providing an opportunity for students to get in the game.

“Keeping sports in school was the safest and best decision possible,” Aaron Anderson said on Friday’s Greg Morgan Morning Show. “It’s going to provide opportunity for students to get back and play, practise and establish a feeling of camaraderie that has been missing, that our schools haven’t been able to provide now  for a number of months.

Due to COVID-19, school divisions have decided there will not be any competition between schools this fall in cross-country, football, soccer or volleyball.

However, the divisions will give schools the option to organize extracurriculars, practices and intramurals within themselves.

“Our goal is to always have our students participate,” said Jason Coleman, the superintendent of student achievement for Regina Public Schools. “We know that sport is an important aspect of high school life and with the current situation with COVID, we have to take safety as paramount.

“This is a tough decision because we know our students want to participate in our community (and) we want to have them participate.

“We really believe that there is a strong connection between success in school, positive mental health and sport — not just sport, (but) fine arts and other clubs. When we look at that, what we believe is that if we feel it’s safe and we can return safely by controlling the cohorts on a measured basis that it would be good for our kids.”

Cross-country, soccer and football are set to begin Monday, with volleyball to start Oct. 13.

Coleman said there could be a silver lining to the decision.

“One of the things that could be a real positive for this is if we’re doing it within a certain school, we may be able to see more kids be able to participate. We’re not limiting this, depending on the school context, limiting it to just one team representing (the school). We may see much larger participation amongst our student body,” Coleman said.

The Regina Catholic School Division’s superintendent of education services, Kelley Ehman, said this is the first step in the division’s return-to-play plan.

“We certainly want to provide those physical activity outlets and we feel that starting at a school-based level with practices and drills and scrimmage is the best way to start so that we can move towards the eventual return of intercollegiate play,” Ehman said.

“This is where we’re starting. I would like to see us return to some interschool play as well as every coach and every passionate sports person and every parent. It’s a very fluid situation.”

The next big decision will be what to do about winter sports.

“That will be my next job, to try and plan for mini-leagues within the current guidelines and hopefully by that time, the (COVID case) numbers have (decreased) where we can start to get into some intercollegiate activity,” Anderson said.

Parents were divided into two camps, Anderson said, between continuing play as normal or cancelling sports altogether.

“Let’s just keep it manageable, keep it safe, keep it within the school and then hopefully by the winter, we’re back to somewhat normal,” Anderson said.

Anderson said it would be up to the school divisions to pull the plug on other seasons if COVID worsens. He did not give any specific criteria that would trigger a pause on activities.

“We’re going to hope that obviously that doesn’t occur. Could it? Very likely,” he said. “But let’s just take one day at a time, one step at a time and continue with this measured, cautious approach.”

— With files by 980 CJME’s Britton Gray