The Osceola County School District will allow athletes to return to campus to work out with coaches beginning June 15.
County Athletic Director Ryan Adams said he sent word to athletic directors this week with a rough draft of what summer conditioning will look like in pandemic prevention world. More official guidelines will come next week, he said.
“It’s about being ready to go July 27, it’s a six-week process to avoid physical problems related to inactivity,” Adams said, noting the official start of fall 2020 practices for sports like football, volleyball, swimming, cross country and golf, which the FHSAA still says it’s still on track for.
In a normal year — Remember normal? Vaguely? — weight rooms and facilities would be allowed to be available for open workouts over the summer.
Celebration Athletic Director Rick Tribit said he and other ADs got a four-page document that included guidelines like hand sanitizing stations “everywhere”, limits on sizes of groups, separation of groups, and that the first two weeks will be exclusively conditioning and not sport-specific workouts.
Like businesses reopening, athletes will be on a phased program, Adams said. For example, athletes who start participating on July 1 will have to start from the first phase.
Students will also have to have completely filled out paperwork and active physicals to participate. Instead of being good for a full school year, physicals now expire 365 days from when they’re done.
These workouts are also voluntary, but Celebration High football Coach Jay Sobke thinks participation will be pretty good.
“The kids want to do something, especially after being off on their own for a couple months, and parents want them out of the house,” Sobke said.
