AURORA — The first of the two annual Colorado High School Activities Association board of control meetings will be today at Red Lion Hotel Southeast, another docket highlighted by tinkerings and changes to 21 prep sports.
Play-up requirements, possible winter practice during the holiday break and the football committee taking charge of the two-year cycles are expected as the highlights of the 67-member group’s gatherings.
Schools may now elect to play in higher classifications in sports of their choice. For example, Mullen chooses to play in Class 5A boys basketball and baseball (football would not be affected), but stays within its 4A designation in other sports. The change would require the Mustangs to stay in 4A or play up in 5A across the board.
As for the no-practice rule, usually a 10-day break over Christmas and New Year’s shuts down high school sports. But a move to permit practice from about Dec. 28-31 would be a significant change as well as possibly spark the move to long-expected competition.
CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann cited the possible move “for key reasons,” notably avoiding the interruption of the winter season and how teams “would benefit from at least allowing a practice or so during a portion of the break.”
Football, as usual, is due its annual administrative maintenance, including having teams seeded 1 through 8 in the four quadrants of the 32-team 5A bracket in order to avoid head-to-head league rematches in early rounds. In addition, the sport’s committee would take command of setting its two-year alignments from the Classification and League Organizing Committee, which handles all other sports.
Other key points to be discussed: an additional class of track that would bring the total to five, mandatory down time from practices in early July, changing enrollment figures from a two-year average to one, clarifying wording on the cash and merchandise a student-athlete may receive, changes to the no-Sunday contact rule in the offseason, a proposal for geography to be given the highest priority for playoff formats, permitting the use of helmets for seven-on-seven football in the offseason, and — get this — allowing pull carts in golf.
