I’m trying to make sense of nonsense

Which is starting to beg the question: why? On their own, these student-athletes are allowed to play golf, tennis or swim at their leisure. But put it in a school setting and suddenly it’s off limits.

Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

“They’re playing football in Utah and we can’t even swim, play golf or tennis? We can’t even do sports that people are doing in the community?” asked Steve Sell, Aragon football coach, athletic director and president of the Central Coast Section. “I understand what the (virus) numbers are and it’s not that I don’t respect the virus, I do, but it’s really surreal to watch kids playing high school football now. … We’re only a couple states away from Utah, but we’re a million miles away to how close we are to playing. They’re playing right now and we’re just praying we can start practice Dec. 14.”

Football and wrestling, because of the sheer physical nature of those sports, remain the most dicey when it comes to high school sports. While there have been a smattering of COVID-19-canceled football games in the states that are playing, it seems that the virus is pretty much in check — at least I haven’t heard of massive virus outbreaks among high school football teams.

But the football season doesn’t help high school golfers or tennis players get back out there, when it appears that it can be done so safely. Given the safety protocol implemented on courses and courts, I don’t see any reason why they could not play a traditional fall girls’ golf, girls’ tennis schedule and move the swim season from the spring to the fall.

The main reason is, there is no wiggle room because of the schedules set by the California Interscholastic Federation. When the CIF moved the state tournament schedules of fall sports to the spring and rearranged the winter and springs seasons as well, it locked those seasons in place. It left no leeway to maybe have a season starting in September instead of affecting facilities with double the amount of golf, tennis and pool usage when March rolls around.

I think, however, it would be really easy for the CIF to change course and start the seasons of the so-called “lower risk” sports. If they set a starting date of, say, Oct. 1, I believe a golf team, for instance, could easily ramp up and be ready for the season. The top players are already out there playing, anyway. There would be no real need for a long preseason. Maybe a couple of team meetings and send them out to compete for their schools.

As spring turned into summer and the high school sports world began to look long and hard at what the 2020-2021 season would look like, a prevailing thought was that if students are not attending on-campus classes, that it would be impossible to have after-school sports.

After all, if it’s not safe to be on campus for class, how could it be safe for athletes?

What I think we’re seeing, however, is the opposite. In the college ranks, while a lot of school’s athletic programs reported handfuls of positive tests for the coronavirus, we’re now seeing college and universities going back to distance learning as huge outbreaks of COVID-19 are shutting down campuses.

It’s one thing to have 35 students in a poorly ventilated classroom, with very little social distancing, it’s another to have 35 golfers — or tennis players or swimmers — participating in athletic activities outdoors where staying socially distant is much easier to maintain.

My whole point is — if it’s OK for the community at large to play, why can’t high school athletes?

Said Sell: “The concept that you can’t run a sport that’s outside, that you can make modifications to have social distancing and reduce transmission, you shouldn’t do those activities for the emotional well-being of kids?”

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117.