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The questions come from every angle, it feels like, as we near the start of high sports in Hawaii for the 2020-21 school year.
What sports can we expect to see?
Does football have any chance of happening?
How soon can conditioning start?
I get these questions when I'm at the grocery store, when I'm out to dinner, and sometimes when I'm conducting interviews on other subjects.
The answers are not easy to find, to say the least, and they are based on several factors.
The answers, in order -- to the best I can tell -- are: several, a very small maybe, and soon.
Although completely tentative, dates have been set by the state scheduling committee.
Traditional fall sports have a hoped-for start date of Jan. 4 with the exception of football (Feb. 22) and girls volleyball (March 1). State tournaments are very tentatively scheduled to run the week of March 15, football and girls volleyball the week of May 10.
Traditional winter sports also have a tentative start date of Jan. 4 and state tournaments hope to run the week of March 15.
Traditional spring sports have a start date of March 1. The state tournaments are scheduled to run the week of May 10, which is about as late as things can go with graduations starting soon after.
Conditioning sessions are just one step away on the Department of Education draft of its reopening guidance for the return to athletics, which is aligned with the DOE return-to-school guidelines.
The DOE has boiled things down to five separate levels based on percent of positivity rates for COVID-19 and athletics are closely following suit.
Keep in mind that the DOE and state Department of Health must agree -- hopefully at a meeting this week -- that both of their plans for return to athletics line up. That meeting has already been delayed at least once.
There will be specifics for each sport, of course.
The DOE has a color-coded spectrum, going from purple to red to orange to yellow to green for return to school and return to athletics.
The far end of the spectrum (purple) is learn-from-home-only when the percent positivity is greater than 7.5; the next tier (red) is elementary blended learning, secondary learn-from-home when positivity is 5-7.5 percent; blended learning (orange) for all comes at the 2.5-5 percent level; elementary in-person, secondary blended (yellow) is reached when the rate is 1-2.5 percent; and when the rate drops below 1 percent, in-person learning for all is reached (green).
The rules for conditioning would be one coach for 10-12 athletes, social distancing, no contact, no shared equipment. Conditioning is the closest thing on the horizon and realistically can start in early January when most schools will go from red to orange (blended learning).
The next step is full practices for low-risk and modified moderate-risk sports when the yellow level is reached and most secondary schools are at least blended learning. That would include air riflery, golf, swimming, track, cross country and bowling -- all from the low-risk category.
Moderate-risk sports that can be modified -- especially spring sports that were already missed in 2020 -- also appear to me to have a decent chance to see their seasons played in totality.
Baseball and softball are on the list where modifications can be made to move them from moderate to low risk. While the details on the modifications haven't been detailed to anyone that I know of yet, my simple thought is face masks would make it doable.
Volleyball and tennis are also on the list to be modified down to low risk -- the challenge with those two is finding a way where sharing of balls between players is lowered.
We all have to keep in mind that the DOE, DOH, Hawaii High School Athletic Association and local government officials must all get together on the same page before most of this happens.
For football to happen, we must be in the green zone, and get approval from the DOH and local government.
Adding in the challenges of finding venues for games and practices, referees and players who are not doing other sports, shows the clock is simply running out on football for this year.
HHSAA Executive Director Chris Chun did suggest to me early this month that in places like Maui and Kauai, where COVID numbers have been fairly low, football might still be on the table.
My first wish to Santa Claus would be to see the Maui Interscholastic League try to get a one-round season in for the 11-player game. If we added eight-player power Molokai to the regular MIL mix of five teams, the season could run for five weeks of games with three games a week.
Play the Molokai games on Saturday afternoon so the Farmers or their opponents could go over and get home on the same day, via chartering the Molokai ferry as the Farmers already do for their football travel.
Of course, money is a BIG factor for all of that.
Football, wrestling, judo and competitive cheer are all in the high-risk category.
Athletic administrators I have talked to say that doctors and athletic trainers say that the timetable is six to eight weeks -- after approval by all powers that be -- before football contact can happen because of the length of inactivity.
So, bottom line, I think sports like air riflery, bowling, golf, tennis, swimming, track, cross country, baseball, softball, volleyball, soccer and water polo all have a reasonable chance to have a season before graduation in May.
I do not see football, wrestling, competitive cheer and judo happening in my crystal ball.
Basketball and canoe paddling I'm putting on the maybe list.
One last caveat, the MIL has a current policy where no team will start until all league teams can practice or play, a noble notion for sure. However, it is currently holding back private schools like Seabury Hall and St. Anthony that are both into in-person learning mode already.
Considering the unique circumstances and COVID challenges places like Lanai, Molokai and Hana face, I don't think others will be held back if the rural folks aren't able to participate.
I believe the MIL policy on play or not to play will evolve into a sport by sport, division by division basis.
I hope I have cleared up some muddy waters.
All I want for Christmas is some -- any -- high school sports to cover.
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.