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HHSAA aims to have tentative start dates by end of month

Chun

The first meeting of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association sports committee on Monday came up with a target date of May 31 to have tentative start dates for prep sports set for the 2020-21 academic year.

HHSAA executive director Chris Chun said the remote meeting, which included representatives from all five of the state’s leagues, went well.

He said the committee, which includes Maui Interscholastic League executive director Joe Balangitao, Maui High School athletic director Mike Ban and Lahainaluna AD Scott Soldwisch, will meet again next Monday and as often as needed to the end of the month.

“I thought it went really well, everyone agreed that we have to work together,” Chun said. “Any changes that we have to come up with, we agreed that all the leagues will be playing the same seasons.”

One idea from the Big Island Interscholastic Federation was simply to play spring sports that were canceled in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic in the fall, fall sports in the winter, and winter sports in the spring for the coming school year. Chun sent the representatives back to their leagues to “brainstorm” ideas.

“Talk it over with their leagues and everyone bring back maybe by our meeting next Monday any ideas that they might have, the best one or two ideas,” Chun said. “We will try to meet once or twice a week all the way through May 31st and by May 31st we come up with a calendar that we think would work.”

Chun said the committee knows its work is dependent on rules set down from state and county governments and the state Department of Education.

“We understand that it might have to change,” Chun said. “Everyone, they seemed open to it. I threw out ideas about moving sports around, consolidating seasons, everything. And everyone said yeah, they’re willing to look at all options to make sure that we have state tournaments for all the sports.”

Last week, Chun brought up the idea of moving spring sports to the fall as much as possible. His main suggestions were golf and tennis — golf courses were allowed to start opening statewide on May 1.

“Every league pretty much has entertained the idea of moving at least some of the spring sports to the fall,” Chun said. “Everyone is going to try to come up with something, but I think moving certain spring sports to the fall is a possibility.”

Chun still likes the idea of tennis and golf being played in the fall and “anything that the counties will allow us play,” he said.

He said that cross country could be run in the fall “with adaptations, same with track (and field). I mean, the (cross country) course is there, but everyone can’t run at the same time. We’d have to figure out something, but I think a lot of sports can be done with modifications.”

Chun said football was discussed only lightly during the meeting. Last week, Chun told The Maui News that football could be played next spring.

“We didn’t even want to discuss it other than that if there’s issues we probably would have to push it back a couple weeks,” Chun said. “That was the only thing discussed. It wasn’t talked about moving seasons or anything.”

The Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association conference where state rules and changes are adopted annually in June has been canceled, but Chun sees these meetings as getting things in line for next year.

“It was good because these are athletic directors that, I mean, they can’t even unanimously agree on proposals, right?” Chun said. “So for them to unanimously agree on something like this is really an encouraging sign. It’s showing that stuff we worked on in regards to suspending and prolonging and hope for spring and trying to resume spring (sport) is carrying on to this.

“It’s good to see that at least something positive can come out of this in regards to the leagues working together. There was no argument, no one trashed anyone’s ideas — it was really good. Everyone was very supportive and open and willing.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

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