MHSAA Ready For Winter Sports If The State Will Lift The Ban

Friday morning during a press conference, Michigan High School Athletic Association Director, Mark Uyl said that they are ready to start winter sports as soon as they get the OK from the state, according to WOODTV.

“Once we do get the go-ahead, the competition can happen very, very quickly — within a few days."

While Uyl told news outlets that he understood the stopping of indoor contact sports back when cases were surging in November, now with cases dropping, he’s wondering what metrics are being considered to keep the ban in place. As WOODTV reports as the MHSAA is in contact with state officials they’ve been talking about how high the negative test results had been for students and coaches during the fall season.

Health officials around the state though are worried about starting up winter sports because of the new variants that are able to spread even faster than the original virus.

From WOODTV, Marcus Cheetham, who's with the Mid-Michigan District Health Department, shared the concern of various health officials,

"We have this more contagious variant coming,” he said. “As local health departments, we know that safety protocols we’ve had in place, masking, social distancing, it’s not going to work like it has in the past.”

WOODTV reported that Thursday student-athletes, their parents, and coaches all spoke before the Michigan House committee asking for winter sports to start back up because the students need the outlet after a year of the pandemic and not being able to play or even really socialize with other students/teammates. Everyone appearing before the House committee spoke about how they were more than willing to follow any safety protocols out in place, if they were able to play, including limiting the number of fans in attendance at the competitions, according to WOODTV.

The ban for indoor winter sports is currently in effect until February 21st. WOODTV says that the Governor’s office had hinted at maybe changing that this week, but nothing ever came of it. They also say the Republican-led Legislature is hoping to make the decision one that the local health departments can make for schools in their regions.

Right now, we wait and see.