KHSAA weighing options on girls’ state tournament amid coronavirus concerns
With the global coronavirus crisis causing colleges and the NBA to take drastic steps at the direction of health officials to help control the spread of the outbreak, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association plans to continue to hold its girls’ state tournament as scheduled Thursday.
But Commissioner Julian Tackett said the KHSAA will be discussing options Thursday morning on how or if the rest of the Mingua Beef Jerky/KHSAA Girls’ Sweet 16 and next week’s Whitaker Bank/KHSAA Boys’ Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena will be held.
A press conference is scheduled for 11:40 a.m. Thursday, ahead of the day’s first game.
“Our plans, right now: We are gathering data tonight and tomorrow morning. We are scheduled to talk with our Department of Education again in the morning and likely with the governor’s office, who has asked for us to be involved in a conversation and looking at alternative plans,” Tackett said Wednesday night in a more than 15 minute press event. “Yes, those plans could go into effect as early as Friday. And, yes, those plans would impact more than just the girls’ tournament.”
Thursday morning, several Twitter accounts affiliated with schools began announcing they had stopped selling tickets to next week’s boys’ tournament on site., but no announcement about the status of either tournament had been made yet when doors opened to fans at Rupp Arena.
Fans gathered early at the gate said they would be disappointed if a decision was made to ban or limit fans at Rupp Arena, but given the developments this week around the nation, they understood.
“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” said Marshall County fan Cory Carter who made the four-hour drive from Calvert City to be here. “It’s kind of a reality check. It went from you hearing it overseas to in a period of 24 hours all the leagues shutting down, the NBA, all the conference tournaments. It’s kind of scary.”
Dayna Gilvin, the mother of Sacred Heart player Josie Gilvin, said she would be heartbroken if fans were kept away from the rest of the tournament after Thursday’s games.
“It would be very devastating, obviously, for me, for all of our fans,” Gilvin said. “But, of course, we’re going to do what we have to do for the safety of everyone in the community.”
Gilvin brought her younger children with her for Thursday’s game.
“I said, ‘Make sure you’re washing your hands, keep your hands away from your face, keep them to yourself,’” Gilvin said. “I played high school basketball, I played college basketball and I always made it to the regional championship, but never made it to the state. This is the first time anyone in my family has made it to state. I don’t want to miss this.”
Friday will be the tournament’s quarterfinals round. Another four first-round games are scheduled Thursday with semifinals Saturday and the championship on Sunday. The boys’ tournament is scheduled to begin next Wednesday.
“Obviously, the best-case scenario is an announcement (Thursday) that the virus is gone, but that’s probably not going to happen,” Tackett said. “The worst case scenario is some form of directive that says, ‘Don’t play at all.’ We’re trying to find an answer in the middle. And I think we have a pretty good idea. I don’t want it to drag on.”
Logistically, with many teams and families in town for games already, it would be difficult for the KHSAA to ban fans from Rupp on Thursday, Tackett said. He added it would also be unfair for Wednesday’s eight teams to have the full state tournament experience and Thursday’s teams be denied that.
“The intention is to try to play (Thursday) because I think certainly an abrupt, first-round change would be a bit of a struggle,” Tackett said.
Tackett also said the KHSAA would attempt to play both tournaments even if it determined they had to be closed to fans.
“Playing without fans is better than not playing,” Tackett said. “Or playing with less fans is better than not playing at all.”
Tackett said it must take the health concerns seriously as others have done, but it also takes seriously its responsibility to its players, coaches and their families and their efforts.
“Our number one goal always is to protect the participation opportunity these 15- to 18-year-olds have earned,” Tackett said. “It means something.”
Asked after his team’s win about the possibility of playing without their fans on Friday, Anderson County Coach Clay Birdwhistell said: “It would be heartbreaking for our community. They have taken this team and uplifted them. They have showed up every single time — and it’s not just postseason. ... It would be hard for our community because they very much support us and care about us.”
The NCAA and several college conferences, including the Southeastern Conference, announced Wednesday they would hold their tournaments without fans in the arenas, while the NBA suspended its regular season “until further notice” after one of its players tested positive for the coronavirus Wednesday night.
At last report by Gov. Andy Beshear, there have been eight confirmed cases of coronavirus in Kentucky — five in Harrison County, two in Fayette County and one in Jefferson County.
“Obviously, with what’s going on around us, we would be doing less than our obligation if we didn’t look at options,” Tackett said. “We don’t take our direction from college conferences or other state associations. We take it from our member schools and our board and our partners at the state department of education.”
Options include holding the rest of the tournament with no fans, limited fans or at the least trying to space the fans out in the arena so that they are less congested.
Tackett said the KHSAA might attempt to space fans out at the direction of ushers Thursday rather than letting them sit closely bunched together. Rupp seats more than 22,000. Wednesday’s afternoon session drew 4,774 fans. Its evening session had a crowd of 5,467.
Many tickets for the events have been sold in advance through Rupp Arena, but others were sold through the individual schools, so he could not speak to how refunds would work, specifically. The KHSAA does not have an insurance policy for such an event because there are no insurance policies for pandemics, Tackett said.
“This is a very unusual situation. I can only speak for 36 years, but it’s definitely the first time in 36 years it’s happened,” Tackett said. “It is a very rare occurrence and we’re having to take very rare steps.”
Tackett wanted to squash a rampant social media rumor Wednesday that spring sports would be canceled. He said such a contingency has “never been discussed” and that those sports’ regular-season games and meets are up to each individual school with the KHSAA coming in only at the state championship event level. And those remain scheduled at this time.
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 7:21 AM.
