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The Hawaii High School Athletic Association committee in charge of setting start dates for prep sports in the state met on Thursday and pushed its tentative calendar back "2-4 weeks" across the board, according the HHSAA Executive Director Chris Chun.
That means the earliest that football practice can start is now Aug. 31.
In May, the committee tentatively set the start date for football practice to begin Aug. 17 and all other sports to begin practice on Aug. 31 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, those start dates could stretch to the end of September.
"Just creating updated draft of calendar," Chun said in a text message to The Maui News. "New dates not final, but starts pushed back for all sports between 2-4 weeks depending on risk level of each sport. Still 3 separate traditional seasons."
When asked specifically what the start date for football is now, Chun texted, "No specific date has been approved yet."
The HHSAA fall sports calendar normally includes football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, cheerleading, boys and girls bowling, boys and girls air riflery and esports.
While football and cheerleading appear to be the hardest to practice social distancing while competing, several people familiar with the discussions said that esports, bowling, air riflery and cross country are more likely to take place this fall because social distancing is more manageable.
With girls volleyball played indoors, that sport also appears to be in danger of having its season greatly modified or canceled.
Chun said in May that the seasons have "wiggle room" for their start dates and the HHSAA could push things back as far as Oct. 5 for football to start, Oct. 19 for other sports.
"If something happens and we can't start by October 19th then we're going to have to come up with a different plan," he said then.
One key date to keep in mind for a possible final call on whether there will be fall sports -- and in what form they may take -- is Aug. 18 when state Department of Education superintendent Dr. Christina Kishimoto will reevaluate the school and sports situations across the board.
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.