Florida High School Athletic Association executive director George Tomyn said Monday afternoon he has changed his mind and the organization will livestream Friday’s much-anticipated board of directors meeting in Gainesville focusing on fall, winter and spring sports.
“I just notified our board that we will be livestreaming the meeting this Friday,” Tomyn said of the FHSAA meeting during a phone call with the Orlando Sentinel. “I do not know exactly how that’s going to happen. I don’t have any specific details on it at this moment in time.
“I understand, and our board understands, that this is very important to a number of people. We will be sending out detailed information as it becomes available.”
Friday’s meeting, starting at 10 a.m., at the Best Western Gateway Grand Hotel marks the first in-person gathering of the 16-person board since the COVID-19 outbreak halted high school sports in mid-March.
The board twice held emergency videoconference meetings in June in search of solutions for how and when to bring teams back to the field of play with the coronavirus pandemic still impacting the state.
The FHSAA had an audience of more than 4,000 YouTube viewers watching its July 20 board meeting. It was much the same three days later, with another volatile meeting that saw the vote to push preseason starts back a month from July 27 to no earlier than Aug. 24.
Tomyn told the Sentinel on Friday the FHSAA would not be livestreaming this week’s meeting. As that word spread along with the news that only 50 people would be allowed into the hotel ballroom — including board members and FHSAA staff — due to Alachua County coronavirus restrictions, many in the media and the public bombarded the FHSAA with criticism and requests to offer some form of broadcast. Some said the association would be violating Sunshine Law standards if it did not livestream the discussion.
Initially, the board seemed to follow Tomyn’s lead and leaned toward allowing local decisions while maintaining the FHSAA’s traditional sports calendar. That, proponents said, would have permitted North Florida schools with low COVID-19 numbers to start fall tryouts on June 27.
But during its second meeting, on June 23, the board reversed its vote and pushed the start date back for all fall teams to no sooner than Aug. 24. It asked Tomyn and his Gainesville-based staff to confer with advisory committees and gave the association’s Sports Medicine Advisory Committee more time to gather data to be considered Friday.
Now, amid reports the Big Ten is moving its college football season to spring and that the Pac-12 has postponed its season, the FHSAA will again tackle the prickly issue of whether some teams should be allowed to start earlier than others.
The board will be looking at three options that have been discussed since its last meeting with coaching advisory committees for football, girls volleyball, cross country, golf and swimming. Bowling is the other fall sport that is awaiting word on its future as schools begin to reopen.
Option 1 would maintain the Aug. 24 practice date and offer a revamped state series. All teams that sign on for the football playoffs would be placed in blind draw brackets for the eight classifications (1A through 8A). Districts would disappear to provide more scheduling flexibility. State finals would be pushed back to the weekends of Dec. 10-12 and 17-19.
The other fall sports would also have game schedules starting the week of Sept. 7 and leading into a condensed playoff system.
Option 2 would have practices starting after August and end fall regular seasons on Nov. 28. That would eliminate state championship playoffs and in their place permit region or local FHSAA-sanctioned bowl games, tournaments and events to be concluded by Dec. 12.
Option 3 would shift the start of fall practices back to Nov. 30 and call for regular-season play from Dec. 14 through Jan. 23. State playoffs would survive but would be played in January and February, possibly with adjusted formats.
The board could vote to adopt any of those options but could also change any of the elements and consider other concepts.
This article originally appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Buddy Collings can be reached by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.
