After 18 months of confusion, hesitation and deliberation, the high school sports scene finally gained a sense of normalcy on Monday as fall sports—including “high-risk” activities—officially held their first day of preseason practices. Despite concerns regarding rising COVID infection rates, Section I—and the rest of New York State—appears to be heading toward holding athletic competitions as scheduled for the first time since the winter of 2020.
The 2020-21 school year saw a massive restructuring of athletic seasons, as New York State coronavirus guidelines prompted the postponement of high-risk fall sports, such as volleyball and football, and condensed sports schedules to minimize out-of-region and postseason play. The football and volleyball seasons were packed into a six-week time-slot from March to late-April that did away with traditional preseason practices as well as sectional-based playoffs.
With his team enjoying its first traditional practice on Monday, Tuckahoe’s head football coach John D’Arco Jr., admitted that it was comforting to slip into the normal rhythms of the preseason.
“It was awesome to be out here,” D’Arco said. “Being able to play last year was nice, but you always felt like something was different. You didn’t have your two-a-days, you didn’t even really know if you were going to have a season at that point.”
That uncertainty, D’Arco said, had a profound effect on his players. But even as fall sports teams were preparing for a return to the field, it was clear that coronavirus guidelines would still loom large.
On June 27, Dr. Robert Zayas, the executive director of the New York State Public High School Athletics Association, announced that there would be no COVID restrictions in place for the upcoming scholastic year and reinstated traditional statewide postseason tournaments for 2021-22.
On Aug. 12, however, the New York State Education Department released a memo that cautioned against a return for high-risk sports, suggesting that football and volleyball seasons be postponed or that participation limited to fully vaccinated student-athletes.
Section I’s Executive Committee cleared the way for fall sports last week, leaving the decision to opt-out of the fall season in the hands of individual school districts.
For local football coaches, however, the back-and-forth was just another distraction.
“I just tried not to think about what was going on because I didn’t want to get upset. We’d been working together all summer, lifting in the weight room and doing 7-on-7s at Bronxville,” said D’Arco. “We cleared that hurdle, but we know that things can change at any moment.”
Like other teams across the state, Tuckahoe—which opens interscholastic competition with a Sept. 4 scrimmage against Bronxville before playing Woodlands in its first regular season contest the following week—will simply try to go about its business and adapt to any unforeseen obstacles going forward.
“It’s tough for a kid; they’re gearing up for their season and a month before, they hear ‘Oh, we’re going to have state playoffs and a normal season,’ and then a couple of weeks after that, it’s like we might not even play,” said D’Arco. “So we don’t even talk about the stuff we can’t control. Right now, we’re just getting ready for our first game.”
