Santa Ana College soccer players celebrate during a match last year. (Photo courtesy Santa Ana College sports information)
Athletics at Santa Ana College and other community colleges in the state have been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic but Athletic Director Mary Hegarty said she wants athletes to be prepared for the new plan.
Under the plan adopted by the California Community College Athletic Association, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, football, women’s golf, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, water polo and wrestling would start on Feb. 5, 2021.
The second group of sports, including badminton, baseball, beach volleyball, men’s golf, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field and men’s volleyball would start April 10, 2021.
“All sports were moved to spring 2021 with fall sports at the beginning followed by spring sports,” Hegarty said. “Schedules were reduced to 70 percent of allowable contests and playoffs will be shortened and limited to regional only, not statewide.”
If the plan can be implemented, there would be seven football games instead of the traditional 10.
Students have begun fall classes at Santa Ana College, Hegarty said.
“Students are enrolled as usual in their fall classes, one of which is their off season sport class,” Hegarty said.
“Currently, all classes continue to be remote and we will revisit that throughout the semester as things (hopefully) improve related to COVID throughout the state. All of our full-time faculty coaches and now most of our part-time faculty coaches are certified online instructors and have done a great job transitioning and connecting with their students since this began in March.”
Hegarty said coaches are also looking at adding different technologies to help in the process.
Hegarty said at this time, physical exams are not being offered for athletes.
“Currently, there is no plan for mass physicals as we have done in the past due to social distancing and other health concerns,” she said. “We are encouraging student athletes to get their physical exams on their own if possible and understand that some students are unable to afford that. We continue to connect with our medical staff to monitor the virus and plan for our physicals. I hope that later in the fall there is an opportunity to perform the mass physicals, but currently there is not.”
Hegarty said she is encouraging athletes to be ready for the possible return of sports. Local and state health officials would have to give final approval for sports to return.
“One of the important lessons that athletics teaches is that you can’t always control what happens to you, but you alone can control your response,” she said.
“My advice would be to encourage our student athletes to ‘stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.’ At some point, we will be on the other end of this pandemic and back to competing.
“It is up to us if we want to take this challenging time as an opportunity to actually get better, or an excuse for failure. I expect our SAC Dons to choose the former and be ready when the time comes. Go Dons!”
-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; ocsportszone.com
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