Prep sports: Year of the early starts

By Ed Piper

La Jolla High students have welcomed the late-start Tuesdays each week, which are a new feature of local high schools and middle schools due to literature arguing for adolescents' longer sleep and later sleep needs.

In contrast to this educational trend common among schools, this is the year of early starts to sports seasons in high school athletics, as we are only in the second week of November (Nov. 9) and official basketball games begin next week. Unheard of until this year, but also, we're told that while next year will follow suit, actually football next fall will start games a week later (instead of a rushed August 16), thereby signaling the start of all sports seasons a week later for 2019-2020.

The reason for the rush is ironical: Someone, or some "ones", are pushing the state playoff agenda in every sport. That means that, with the lengthened season in each sport, more time is necessary and so the early start of fall sports back in mid-August (two weeks before students had even been on campus for classes).

Doing the math, that means winter sports also start two weeks early this year--Nov. 15 for the opening game for Coach Paul Baranowki's boys basketball team, shortly thereafter for Coach Darice Carnaje's girls basketball team.

The irony comes in high school sports' stated intent to cut down the amount of contact football players have, yet adding more games via the state playoff system (which extends an already-long CIF San Diego Section playoff structure).

So, the question I'm burning to ask state officials is, how come the longer postseason, yet the official position that the increasing evidence for CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and other brain injuries means we need to limit the number of collisions in football?

Back to the early-start theme, most student-athletes I've talked to from Vikingland say they like the later-start Tuesdays. One runner said she didn't like the fact that, now that school that one day starts an hour and 25 minutes later than other days, 8:50 from 7:25, there is ample time for the cross country team to train in the early morning before school. Too bad for sleeping in!

The fall sports season was a blur. Before November, we already saw Coach Kelly Drobeck's girls volleyball team already dodge in and out of the Open Division playoffs (though they garnered a spot in the state regionals on the merits of their Open Division status, the highest level of play). Girls tennis (also coached by the capable Carnaje) also done before October ended. Just incredible. Though I had made schedules to keep track of upcoming games to plan for photo-shooting and written coverage, I still was caught off-guard by the rapid progress of the various sports into the playoffs.

My own position is that the state playoffs intrude on the local play in the sports that follow. For example, you look in the Union-Tribune for prep sports coverage, and here we're still reading stories about the volleyball regionals when wrestling, girls and boys soccer, and the traditional sports of girls and boys basketball still haven't gotten the preview play they deserve.

It's like someone at the state level wants to build "skyscrapers" to make their "city" impressive to others--in this case, the metaphorical imposing buildings being the state playoffs--at the expense of the forestated issues of player safety in football and emphasis on local competition (over distant competitions rarely taking place in front of home crowds).

Maybe starting the winter sports November 15 isn't so bad. It does mean we end the league schedule on or around February 8, which is extremely early. But at least it isn't as inconvenient as the premature games in football. The problem with the latter is that, with students not having started fall classes yet when the first two weeks' games are played, one, home field revenue is lost in subpar attendance, and two, attendance and enthusiasm on campus hasn't been able to be built up (i.e., no pep rallies on campus, no word-of-mouth among classmates, etc.).

Hold on for dear life for the impending winter sports season, destined to be followed in short order by the spring sports season. Coach Gary Frank says his baseball program will hold its annual Alumni Game, instead of the normal March 1 or so, this coming winter on Feb. 16. Wow.