Football camps in Irvine and other OC districts postponed indefinitely pending more guidance

After one day, high school football camps and all other athletic camps in the Irvine Unified School District were shut down and postponed indefinitely pending further guidance from state and county health officials, according to the district’s athletic director Mark Cunningham.

The recommendation will also have an impact on other school districts in the county.

The Irvine district was responding to a memo from the Orange County Department of Health regarding camps. High school sports have been shut down since March because of the coronavirus pandemic but Irvine had its first day of camps on Monday for a number of teams.

“It (the memo) said that the California Department of Health made one ruling and we understood it to mean one thing as to the Orange County Department of Health and they’ve gotten guidance now from the California Department of Health that it (the guidance on camps) does not apply to recreational team sports,” Cunningham said.

“It doesn’t specifically further address school based sports and extracurriculare activities but indicates further specification and guidance will be forthcoming. They said it was going to be forthcoming but it has not yet issued a state-wide guidance for reopening recreational team sports.”

As a result, the Irvine camps will be postponed, but could be resumed based on further rulings from the state and the county, Cunningham said.

“We’re going to postpone it until we get further guidance,” Cunninngham said.

Cunningham said there were no indications that the decision was made as a result of the rising coronavirus cases in Orange County and the state the past week.

“It isn’t specifically about the infection rate,” Cunningham said. “We’re basically being advised, so we’re not going to take any chances. It went from the Orange County department of education to all district superintendents in Orange County,” he said.

A number of camps in Irvine were operating Monday, include one at Northwood, where football coach Paige Nobles gathered his team for a 7 a.m. workout. Nobles later had to write a letter to parents and athletes a explaining what had happened.

At Portola, the football camp was under way for about an hour and a half when Coach Peter Abe was notified of the decision and had to end the camp.

“We were in the middle of check-ins,” said Abe.

Abe said he had staggered starts for practice to adhere to social distancing guidelines limiting groups to 10 or less. The practices were scheduled to run in groups from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.

“When we got word from our administration and district AD we took steps to close everything down and get everyone back home,” Abe said. “Hope it’s not for too long.

“Regardless, the Bulldogs will be ready. Happy with the turnout, but we will always defer to our health officials for the safety of our student athletes.

“We put protocols in place to mitigate the risk, but have to defer to OCHA if they feel their guideliunes weren’t enough and we need to shut down. Adapt and overcome. We will hurry up and wait for the next time we can get out there.”

Football teams began camps without footballs and lots of social distancing guidelines were in place. Woodbridge High cross country athletes had their first camp on Monday but were later informed the camp was being postponed.

“I went around and I went to University, to Woodbridge and Irvine highs and observed their camps and the coaches were doing a phenomenal job and everything was socially distanced and the kids had their masks on, it was great and then we get the notification about 3 o’clock,” Cunningham said.

“We’re hoping that having them postponed means we’re going to have them.”

Cunningham said he was not sure when an update will be available from the county and state. No decision has been made on refunds yet as Cunningham said he is still hopeful camps can resume.

“It’s very sad because I think both the coaches and the kids needed this and from what I observed at the three high schools, I was going to do the other two tomorrow, not now, they were doing a super job, I’m just very proud of the leadership of the athletic department and the profesionalism of our coaches,” he said.

The latest ruling will have an impact on other districts in the county. Kevin McCaffrey, baseball coach at Corona del Mar, said Saturday, that camps in the Newport Mesa Unified School District, were being shut down.

Sean Curtis, head football coach at Capistrano Valley, confirmed that camps in the Capistrano Valley school district were postponed on Saturday. They were scheduled to open on Monday.

Crean Lutheran football coach Rick Curtis said his program continued its summer camp on Monday. He not heard heard of any changes to the camp schedule.

On Monday night, Cypress High athletic officials shared a message that “based on the guidance of the OCDE and direction of the AUHSD (Anaheim Union High School District) summer sports have been postponed until further notice. We hope that our student athletes can return to their sport ASAP.”

Camps in the Tustin Unified School District, which began on June 15, continued on Tuesday and there is “no change yet,” according to Mark Eliot, director of communications for the district. The high schools in the district are Beckman, Foothill and Tustin.

No decision has been made on the start of the high school football season. CIF officials said they plan to provide an update on fall, winter and spring sports on Monday, July 20.

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com