Q and A: Despite setbacks, commissioner remains determined to help sports return

CIF Commissioner Rob Wigod continues to lead the way for the return of high school sports. (File photo courtesy CIF Southern Section)

While the future of high school sports remains up in the air, CIF Southern Section Commissioner Rob Wigod continues to be focused on trying to lead the way for athletics to return.

Wigod provided an update Tuesday and said post-season competition for football, boys and girls water polo, girls volleyball and boys and girls cross country was being cancelled but he was still hopeful regular season contests could be held.

High school sports has been on hold since last March due to the coronavirus pandemic, and while there are plans for high school sports to return during this school year, there are lots of factors involved including case numbers and designated tiers for sports.

There were some encouraging signs the past two days in Orange County as case numbers began to drop, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency. But Southern California remains in stay at home orders and until that is lifted, no sports can begin. Cross country could start first if stay at home orders are lifted.

“It’s not time to give up, it’s not time to say we have nothing left to fight for,” Wigod said. “Because I believe we still do.”

Thursday, Wigod answered questions from OC Sports Zone. Here are excerpts from the interview, held virtually.

Please explain the CIF state and Southern Section rule which was reinstated this week and prohibits athletes to compete in either club and high school sports at the same time:

Wigod: CIF By-law 600 has always been in place which would only allow high school students to play for their high school team during the high school season of sport. They can practice with an outside team during the high school season, but once they played any high school contest, they would no longer be able to play for their outside team during the high school season of sport.

This year, due to all the schedule changes that were made that we announced in July of 2020, the CIF (state) executive director was waving CIF By-law 600 for the 2020-21 school year which would have allowed student athletes to participate for their high school teams and outside teams during the same season of sport.

What the CIF executive director released yesterday (Wednesday) was the fact that CIF By-law 600 and the waiver that was instituted for this school year would be in violation of California Department of Public Health guidelines and therefore we must comply with California Department of Public Health guidelines meaning student athletes could only participate with one cohort, which is a word also used (for) team at one time. So they would no longer be allowed to be a part of club and high school during the same season as the original waiver was going to allow.

So does that mean an athlete can only play at one sport at a time in high school?:

Wigod: According to California Department of Public Health guidelines, that is correct. A student would not be permitted to play two sports during the same season of sport for their high school …. We’re hoping by the time spring sports can begin that some progress can be made and perhaps that provision can be re-examined and revised.

(Note: in a release from the CIF state office this week, officials said athletes who have played club sports already would not lose eligibility since no CIF contests have been held).

What is the update on talking with state officials about tiers and what are the chances the tier system could be adjusted or eliminated as one coaches group has suggested?:

Wigod: I’m aware of (the suggestion of) tiers being eliminated altogether and that’s come out as suggestion from a group. In the ongoing dialogue that has been happening with the CIF and the California Department of Public Health has been focused on the tiers and the difference between the original plan we submitted in October by our Sports Medicine Advisory Committee for all sports in the red tier.

The response we received, which made changes to that original plan and now the effort to hopefully build on some progress made in some of the numbers of cases per 100,000 and the positivity rates in the seven counties within our footprint and coupled hopefully with some progress made in flattening the curve and seeing the curve go down, we can have a revision of some of the tiers as they relate to each individual sport, specifically sports in orange maybe hoping to be changed to red, yellow to orange, maybe even orange to red eventually for some of those.

Are state officials locked into these tiers or is there some wiggle room?:

Wigod: It’s hard to know, it’s hard to predict the thought processes of those decision makers. I think our role is to try and provide as much information as we can about what’s happening and what high school sports can do to be done in a healthy and safe way and address our concerns in that way to see if we can make some progress with them.

Your reaction to case numbers going down, at least in Orange County, the past couple days?:

Wigod: Several of our counties have. It’s been the first reductions we’ve seen in several weeks and so if we do think back to October, when our original plan was submitted to the California Department of Public Health, five of our seven counties in the Southern Section footprint were in the red tier and we would love to see some movement towards that in the next few weeks.

With the stay at home order in place, it doesn’t appear that cross country will be able to start next week. Is there a date you would like to see the sport begin?:

Wigod: Cross country is scheduled to start next Monday, Jan. 25, however if the stay at home order remains in effect, they cannot begin until the stay at home order is lifted. We will be monitoring that situation obviously and if and when the stay at home order is lifted, they could be in their competition.

They could begin dual meet competition. If they’re wishing to host multiple team events or involve multiple schools in a cross country event, then they would have to seek approval from their local health authority to hold any multiple team events.

It looks like a good opportunity potentially for cross country runners:

Wigod: We certainly hope so and obviously it’s been extremely difficult for everyone trying to resume high school athletic competition and the first step to get at least one sport going and see progress made that potentially some of our other fall sports would have a chance before their seasons completed and then looking at our spring sports to see how those could play out when they begin and get more and more student athletes back to what they love to do and what we love to watch them do.

You mentioned Tuesday that football could possibly be extended to April 30?:

Wigod: That’s a very recent development, and to be honest, with all that’s been going on, we haven’t taken much time to start considering that option. We’ve noticed some other sections have announced that, I know the CIF state office has said the limit for football as recommended by our Sports Medicine Advisory Committee wouldn’t be any time beyond the month of April because of what it would mean for the future and making sure there was significant time between the end of one season and the start of another season, which we all hope will be in August as it normally would.

I would say this, if the California Department of Public Health guidelines remain in effect stating that student athletes can only participate in one team at the same time, an additional two weeks of football all the way until April 30 would have an even deeper impact on other sports which are going on and the spring sports would have started, some of them would have started six weeks prior to April 30. It’s a big consideration, but I also feel we can take a little bit of time to analyze the pros and cons of that kind of thing, although I do know some sections have already gone ahead with that plan.

Football appears to have a great challenge to start with the tier it is in. What do you think the chances are that football will happen?:

Wigod: I find it very hard to predict what will come because we’ve been in such an uncertain time for so long. All I can say is we’re trying to set up a structure that gives the maximum amount of time possible for it to take place and that’s what cancelling our championships at the section level were resulting in schools now having an additional four weeks plus the additional week that the state could cancel their regional football championships. That’s five additional weeks now that can be applied to a potential football season.

Whether or not that will actually happen or not obviously are factors are beyond our control, but I would like to keep hopeful that there is still time for football practice to start in mid-February, in the first week of March and still be able to play five, six games potentially. Maybe only five games at the most or four games at the most but going forward from there it will be up to schools in deciding how many games they can try and play. prior to April 17 if that stays the end date.

All we can do is hope progress can be made to get us closer to that. I wanted to provide as much possible time available for our students as we made the decision that was very difficult to make about cancelling section championships but I believe it was the right decision, so time will tell what will eventually be the end result.

The CIF state office this week reiterated its rules on competition not being allowed at this time under guidelines from the California Department of Public Health:

Wigod: The information that came from the CIF executive director clearly stated that CIF schools will follow California Department of Public Health guidelines. So until a sport is cleared into a particular tier to allow competition by the California Department of Public Health, CIF schools must abide by those guidelines and regulations and at this point going forward everyone has now seen that directive and will need to follow it in the time ahead.

Are you concerned about the future of the CIF with some athletes indicating they will go the club route?:

Wigod: I’m not really concerned about that. I believe education based athletics is a very special and unique thing and I believe student athletes want to be part of high school athletics and it’s different than club and travel and other organizations. I believe the education that students gain through high school education and athletic programs is something unique to us as well. It’s a vehicle for all students to be involved. Club and travel programs aren’t necessarily available to all students and families. I think there are always going to be high school athletics. I think it is special and I think people appreciate it.

What are your thoughts about the Let Them Play group organized by parents?:

Wigod: We’re in support of the organizations that are saying the same thing that we are and I believe that we are. I guess that’s one of the frustrating things that I’ve noticed and seen from so many people who somehow believe that the CIF Southern Section does not want student athletes to return in a healthy and safe way and that’s absolutely, 100 percent incorrect. We want what they want and we should be working together on this. I support that group, I support the football coaches group that is also advocating for a healthy and safe return of football. We’re all on the same page in that philosophy …..

I have to be honest enough to say it’s very disheartening that there are people so mis-informed to believe that this is in some way what we want. That’s absolutely 100 percent not true and anything I can do or anyone else can do to try and get people to at least understand the true and real story is important.

What is the financial impact for CIF of losing post-season competition for the fall sports?:

Wigod: The effects have been extremely devastating to our organization on both a professional and personal level. We unfortunately had to let go several of our staff members and furlough our staff. We’ve had those who are remaining on staff taking income reductions, reductions in medical and health benefits. We do not have approximately 50 percent of our operating revenue that’s coming in from championships and so forth and the ancillary revenues that come with it, the sale of championship apparel, the broadcast and television rights for putting our games on television and the web, our corporate partnerships with companies that support us, with the balls that we use and products like Gatorade.

So all of that is affected when there are no championships being played. We have a huge challenge trying to operate this organization without a major, major part of revenue that comes in. That not only affects us, but our schools as well because we return approximately $1.5 million a year back to our schools in playoff revenue shares, in terms of television and web broadcasting fees. Our schools are missing out on revenues that are returned to them.

So I don’t know if I can describe it enough of how serious this is as a financial issue. But I will still always say we will do everything we can do to provide athletic opportunities regardless of whether we have fans buying tickets and revenue coming in. It’s far more important for the student athletes to have an opportunity to play and we will still fulfill that obligation on our part to conduct our championships, even if we can’t gain revenue from those championships.

What are the prospects for spring sports?:

Wigod: They’re scheduled to begin in the beginning or middle of March and that’s approximately six weeks or so away from now. Again, we saw a little bit of improvement last week in some of our counties. If that continues and the next four, five and six weeks we start seeing that improvement and movement away from the purple tier, as I mentioned the purple tier sports will be able to start when the stay at home order is lifted immediately in the spring as scheduled. Our baseball and softball would be next up in the red tier. Hopefully that would be moving closer to that around March 19 when that starts.

We’re hoping then that the orange tier sports that in are currently in that status might potentially be revised and could potentially move to red, so there are just a lot of things that could play out going forward and we just need to see that happen and continue to monitor it so that to where we might see the spring sports seasons much differently than what we’ve unfortunately had to endure through the fall sport seasons, but again it moves us closer to getting back to what we all love to do.

What keeps you going through the pandemic?:

Wigod: The belief that we will get through it, that we will. We know we will be back, and when we’re back we know we will appreciate more and more what we do. So we just have to keep focused on that. I know there are people running out of patience, they’re …. lashing out and I don’t know that’s the best way to approach this. Our student athletes deserve our best efforts, our student athletes deserve everything we can do for them and that’s what we’re going to focus on. We’re not going to say they aren’t tough days. It’s not a wonderful thing and experience to hear people especially those who are not truly informed about all of this really take this down a negative path.

It is negative. There are plenty of bad things that have happened and awful effects this has had in so many ways, but I think our student athletes deserve us to try our best and stay the course and do all we can for them with that belief there will be a day when it all comes back and I try every day to keep that in the forefront of my mind and keep our student athletes in the forefront of my mind and wish that all those who may believe otherwise understand they’re not right in any way, shape or form. This is exactly who we are, what we do and what we’re about and it will continue that way for as long as I’m involved in it and I look forward to the day we are back and we have this behind us.

Unfortunately that day is not here yet and until it is here, I’m going to keep doing everything I can do on behalf of our student athletes.

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