Why Cancel All Fall, Winter Sports?
January 8, 2021
The cancellation of fall and winter sports this school year is one of those situations equivalent to that of swallowing a bitter pill.
The OIA announced earlier this week, the Hawaii High School Athletic Association’s call to cancel all fall and winter sports 2020-2021 seasons.
A combination of eleven contact and no contact sports have taken the hit, including the major favorite, football.
The toll this kind of loss for players and those involved with fall sports takes, has caused many of us to question why professional athletes fall season is still in play or what we could possibly do to reinvigorate athletes in their sports careers. For athletes who take sports seriously, especially those in their last year(s) looking forward to scholarships or opportunities, a leeway for a season could have been made.
Much like professional sports, where many regulations for health and safety have been made for both the players, staff and audience, high schools could have done the same. If not for the contact heavy sports to resume season with these new regulations, the lesser/no contact sports such as air riflery, could surely have resumed with the proper precautions.
So why not? Budget, lack of time to plan, fear of social overwhelm. Either way, we understand the decision to cancel the fall sports season because in the end it was for the benefit of each of our student athletes’ health and safety.
Amy Fuifui • Jan 11, 2021 at 1:16 PM
Aloha! My name is Amy Fuifui, I am a Junior here at MoHS and I play girls varsity volleyball. I understand that by allowing sports to happen it will cause an unsafe environment for both students and staff, however, there are other ways this situation could have been handled rather than cancelling the entire season. Cancelling our season perhaps should have been the last resort. We have yet tried to work out in masks therefore how would we know what will work and what won’t? Furthermore, my senior teammates will not experience their senior night, senior season, and will not play on the same court with the same group of girls ever again. As a Junior, this was supposed to be the most important year of all. It is my responsibility to put together clips of myself playing to send to coaches. School ball is such an important asset to the highlights. It allows us to include special awards we are given by Spectrum and also gives us recognition by the state. My goal as a student athlete is to play at a collegiate level. With the cancellation of our season that may never happen. It would be so amazing to play alongside my seniors one last time while representing MoHS. Let us compete and do what we love in the safest way possible! We will do everything in our power to make sure that we are following all safety procedures. Please don’t take this away from us! Thank you.