UIL suspends all activities in response to coronavirus concerns

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Following the trend of the rest of the sports world, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) suspended all UIL activities from March 16 to March 29, leaving the Texas high school athletics world dormant.
Several changes had to take place immediately for Snyder High School programs. The Best of the West Baseball Tournament being held at Moffett Field was cancelled and the Snyder softball team had to make the trek back from San Marcos where they were competing in a tournament. Snyder’s track teams saw the San Angelo Relays cancelled and the golf teams will now await the decision that is made on the district golf tournament, which was to be held at Midland Greenwood on Monday.
Snyder athletic director Wes Wood said that he expected this outcome given the reactions from the professional and collegiate leagues.
“I didn’t want to be that guy who was creating false rumors, but I totally saw it coming,” he said. “You look at the NCAA, they’ve already gotten rid of the College World Series and NCAA competition being proactive on this thing. I knew it was coming.”
With the UIL shutdown, all of the local Scurry County high school athletic teams’ seasons are shut down at least until March 29, with the only exception being they are allowed to practice at the discretion of the school district. Wood said he would not be surprised if the UIL decided to stop that as well in the coming weeks.
“It is still up to the school districts if you want to have classes and practices,” he said. “I honestly anticipate the (UIL) issuing a state-wide directive on that to not have school to some extent, but I guess we’ll have to wait on that.”
The suspension runs through the first few weeks of the softball and baseball district seasons for most of the local schools. Snyder softball was scheduled to host Big Spring on Tuesday for the District 5-4A opener and both Ira and Hermleigh’s softball teams were scheduled to open district play on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.
Golf, powerlifting and track are all affected as well, with both the boys’ and girls’ state powerlifting meets facing a delay.
The challenge over the next few weeks for Wood and other athletic directors will be navigating these uncharted waters and deciding how to handle the rest of the season.
“There is not going to be a clear cut, cookie-cutter answer for any of these sports,” Wood said. “As professionals, we are going to have to collaborate and figure out what is best, once they allow us to return to our lives and our sports. I just sent out a message to all of my coaches. All our sports were about to start getting under way. They’ve stated that they are going to bump the UIL certification dates and the area dates. As soon as we get all that information, we will relay it.”
Wood went on to say he agreed with the UIL’s decision, and that the safety of the athletes and those in attendance is the top priority.
“Hopefully this thing blows over and things are great and a lot of people are going to say this was an overreaction, and it might have been but we’ll never know,” he said. “If we weren’t proactive on this, we might be sitting with something we couldn’t undo. It’s a lot like the flu and the thing that is interesting about it. For regular people, it’s not crazy, but when you start looking at all these kids it could spread to and they’re taking it home to elderly, to infants, to weak immunities, then it becomes a big deal. The last thing that sets it apart from the flu is it spreads at a rate of three people, which is more than double the flu. If the people who made this decision were not proactive on it, I think we could end up in a situation that is really scary and to me, it’s peoples’ lives so better safe than sorry.”
As of now, no high school athletics will be played in Scurry County until after March 29. The Snyder News will post updates on the situation as they become available.