Central KY dad challenges KHSAA’s protocol for playing sports after a COVID-19 diagnosis
The father of a high school baseball player from Montgomery County has filed a lawsuit challenging the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s rules for when players can return to competition after testing positive for COVID-19.
An attorney for Dr. Jon Kelly Johnson, a dentist from Mount Sterling, filed the lawsuit against the KHSAA Friday in Montgomery Circuit Court. Johnson’s son is a junior at Montgomery County High School who plays varsity baseball.
While Johnson said the 16-year-old has not been affected by KHSAA’s policy yet, the lawsuit says that if he did get coronavirus, the policy could negatively affect his prospects for college scholarships.
Johnson and his attorney, Trip Redford, alleged in a news release Saturday that the KHSAA’s protocol is “the most severe COVID-19 return to play policy in all of professional or amateur sports in the United States.”
“We would like an elected judge to ask the KHSAA why they know more than the doctors from the CDC, NCAA, SEC, MLB, NFL, and NBA,” Johnson said in the release. “Haven’t these Kentucky children that participate in spring sports been through enough? None of them had a season last spring and now if they have a positive test, it could cost them a third or more of this year’s season also.
“The SEC just implemented their return to play policy and SEC athletes can return to play on day 14. If 14 days is good enough for Kentucky basketball players, it should be good enough for the boys and girls playing high school sports in Kentucky.”
Johnson is asking the court to issue an injunction preventing the KHSAA from enforcing the protocol, which he claims is unconstitutional.
KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett said in an emailed statement Saturday that the association had not “received any notice or complaint regarding this matter other than via the media.”
“We will withhold specific comment and response until that time, including highlighting any inaccuracies,” he said. “We will continue advocating for participation by our schools during the pandemic, something that certainly has not happened in every state or community. We will also continue to offer guidance during this time by taking the best advice from our state and National Sports Medicine Advisory Committees and all health authorities, to establish guidance and recommendations for our member schools.”
Under the KHSAA’s protocol, student athletes who test positive for coronavirus must remain in isolation for 10 days as directed by the Centers for Disease Control.
They are also required to go through a “six-day step-wise return to play protocol.” During that six-day period, students are to gradually increase their physical activity while being watched for symptoms such as “chest pain, chest tightness, palpitations, shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, lightheadedness, pre-syncope, or syncope,” according to the KHSAA.
Between the 10-day isolation and six-day return-to-play phase, the KHSAA also recommends a four-day period of evaluation by a doctor, but it says the final decision on whether to require that extra four days is left to individual school districts, according to a Q&A posted on the organization’s website Jan. 26.
The association says its recommendation for the four-day evaluation period is “primarily motivated by concerns about myocarditis,” or inflammation of the heart muscle, which the KHSAA says ”can lead to heart failure, abnormal heartbeat, and sudden death.”
The KHSAA says the protocols apply to both symptomatic and asymptomatic students who have tested positive.
For districts that follow the recommendation for a four-day evaluation period after isolation, students could return to competition on the 22nd day. In districts that do not follow the recommendation for the evaluation period, students could return to competition on the 17th day, the KHSAA says.
In setting its protocol, the KHSAA says it relies on information from a committee of the Kentucky Medical Association that reviews sports policies, as well as information from the Sports Medicine Committee of the National Federation of High Schools.
Johnson’s son’s spring baseball season was canceled last year because of coronavirus, and he says his son could lose up to a third of this season if he tests positive for the virus. He claims in the lawsuit that the time away could have long-term affects on players, including ineligibility for college scholarships and lost opportunities to be seen by recruiters.
This story was originally published February 20, 2021 at 3:24 PM.
