TAYLOR MADE: RETURN TO NORMALCY LIES AHEAD — HOPEFULLY (2021-08-02)

So far, 2021 has been anything but normal for Tioga County athletes, their fans and families.

We are aware of how crazy the recent scholastic athletic year was. In my opinion, some over-cautious decisions were made by the powers that be in our local leagues and Section IV.

You may recall, Section IV, southeastern neighbor Section IX, and Long Island's Section VIII and Section XI postponed the start of all sports until January. The other neighboring sections — II, III and V (along with I, VI, VII and X — all chose to play in the fall, and had very minimal problems with COVID-19.

In addition, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association decided to cancel all state championship events during the 2020-21 school year. NYSPHSAA could have held spring championships, but decided to cancel those events way back in early February — which was far too early (again in my opinion).

Once the school year was over, we moved on to youth sports and it was nice to see that the coronavirus paranoia was tapering off, despite the fact the Delta variant was creating an increase in COVID-19 cases.

I've talked to numerous athletes and parents, as well as a few coaches and officials, who have their fingers crossed that the upcoming school year will provide us with "normal" athletic seasons and avoid unnecessary and unwanted COVID restrictions.

STRANGE SUMMER
Of course, it was still an unusual start to the summer sports scene thanks to Mother Nature. I attended 50-plus youth baseball games in less than a month — at tournaments in Owego and Endicott, along with a few other games.

I say "attended" and not "covered" because there were six or seven days where games had to be called due to weather threats (not to mention one evening when games were called due to a garage fire on property adjacent to a ball park) and I was unable to provide coverage.

In my 30-plus years as a journalist, I can't ever recall a time when I've seen so much rain-related postponements and cancellations. However, when I was a youth ball player in 1972, we had our season canceled after just three games due to Hurricane Agnes flooding Kirby Park in Nichols.

STATE COMMITTEE CONCERNS
The NYSPHSAA Central Committee met last week and had several interesting topics on its agenda.

The representatives of the 11 sections discussed the use of name, image and likeness in the NYSPHSAA Amateur Rule, which currently prohibits student-athletes from taking advantage of their athletic fame. The committee is considering changing the language to the rule and, following discussion by the individual sections, it will go before the NYSPHSAA Executive Committee on Oct. 20.

The Central Committee also discussed the possibility of adding a sixth classification. The individual sections will have additional discussion before going before the NYSPHSAA Executive Committee for a vote next February.

More about the committee meeting can be found at http://nysphsaa.org/News-Media/Headline-News/Article/id/9669.