WIAA Delays High School Sports Schedule, Citing Coronavirus Surge

SEATTLE — The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has announced plans to delay their upcoming winter season by a month, and shorten all the remaining sport seasons in the 2020-21 school year to seven weeks each.

Now that the board has made their decision, high school athletes competing in winter sports will begin practicing on Feb. 1. The season will then end the week of March 15. The move impacts all WIAA Season 2 sports: high school basketball, bowling, gymnastics, boys swim & dive, and wrestling. Previously, the winter season had been set to begin on December 28.

Following the second season, WIAA Season 3, traditional fall sports including football and soccer, will begin March 15, and wrap on May 1. Season four, consisting of spring sports like baseball and tennis, will begin April 26 and end on June 12.

WIAA board members cite recent spikes in coronavirus activity across the state as the cause for the delay. As The Seattle Times reports, the WIAA had earlier issued their own set of rules laying out which high school sports can safely return and when. Their rules largely follow state health guidance. Notably, for "high-risk" sports like basketball and wrestling to resume, the local county must have fewer than 25 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks. Very few counties currently meet that metric, and according to the latest update to the state's COVID-19 Risk Assessment Dashboard, Washington has an overall rate of 213.5 newly diagnosed cases per 100,000 residents — more than eight times what the WIAA guidelines call safe.

Find the full updated WIAA Sports Season Calendar here.