PIAA Official Offers Hope for Fall Sports

HARRISBURG – A top administrator for the PIAA held out hope Monday that fall high school sports will be held in Pennsylvania this fall.

Melissa Mertz, PIAA associate executive director, in an appearance on Harrisburg radio station WITF, said, “We feel fairly confident that we can get school sports up and running.” Her comments come during a key week for fall sports. The PIAA has called a special board meeting for this Friday as it seeks a path to the beginning of the sports season in the wake of a “strong recommendation” from Gov. Tom Wolf that no sports be held until January of next year because of the coronavirus.

The PIAA and the Wolf administration have been in a dialogue since Wolf’s recent announcement caught the organization off guard. Until the Wolf pronouncement the organization overseeing scholastic sports had anticipated that some level of athletics would be permissible this fall. Mertz said Monday, “We were shocked by that because up until that point we had not received any pushback. It’s caused us to tap the brakes.”

She noted that youth sports programs have been conducted across the state this summer without reports of any COVID-19 outbreaks. She also had concerns about moving fall sports to spring, as had been advanced in some quarters. She cited the flu season, better weather in the fall, and the problems created for schools if two seasons had to overlap in the spring.

While the Wolf administration has stood behind its “no fall sports” recommendation, it subsequently said any such decisions will fall to the PIAA and local school districts.