El Dorado athletic director Phillip Lansdell said his athletic program had 13 games cancelled in various sports due to COVID-19 precautions during the 2020-2021 school year. Four of those games, including two in football, were due to positive tests or contact tracing among El Dorado student-athletes.
This upcoming season, the Arkansas Activities Association announced students that have been vaccinated would no longer have to go into quarantine. It also stated that teams that have to cancel due to COVID, will forfeit the game instead of it being ruled as a no contest, as was the case last year.
In a AAA press release earlier in the month regarding COVID-19 vaccinations for the upcoming athletic school year, it stated, “Last year the vast majority of games, matches, etc., were cancelled due to quarantines, not positive cases.
The CDC, Arkansas Department of Health, and the Governor’s office have all stated that the standard for this school year is for all school-aged students 12 years old and up that are fully vaccinated no longer have to quarantine after exposure to someone with COVID-19. They can continue attending school and participating in extracurricular activities.
The AAA Office encourages everyone who is 12 years old and up and eligible to get vaccinated.”
“I think it’s a very good thing they don’t have to quarantine if they’ve been vaccinated,” Lansdell said. “That’s a lot less missed school, a lot less missed games and practices. We can’t make kids get vaccinated but I would think kids are getting tired of having to get quarantined. They may want to get vaccinated.”
El Dorado cancelled football games against Jonesboro and Pine Bluff and also lost four varsity girls’ basketball games due to cancellations from other schools.
Parkers Chapel athletic director and football coach Elliot Jacobs had this reaction to the AAA’s newest rule change.
“My thoughts on forfeiting games due to COVID, I’m fine with that. I’m glad they didn’t do that last year because this was all new to us. With a year in, that’s kind of a decision that players and coaches are going to have to make,” Jacobs said. “As far as the quarantine stuff and being vaccinated, that’s kind of a sensitive subject, right now. We’re not going to tell anyone you have to get vaccinated. We’re just going to throw it out there, here are the rules. Hopefully it doesn’t come back to bite us in the butt. At the same time, these kids and their parents have to make a decision they feel is best for them.”
The Trojans cancelled one football game due to COVID. Coach Justin Welch said his program lost five girls’ basketball games due to cancellations.
Smackover coach David Osborne said the Buckaroos lost three football games due to COVID and played two more with limited numbers.
“We never played a game with the entire team,” he said.
Smackover also lost at least four basketball games.
Junction City had two football games cancelled. Strong had two football games cancelled and five basketball games cancelled with six more postponed and rescheduled.
Other area coaches reacted to the AAA’s new rules.
“Going to be tough on the smaller schools, point blank,” said Strong coach Jason Porter. “I understand the logic of it but it will hurt smaller schools.”
Junction City football coach Brad Smith summed it up succinctly, “Their ball, we play with it.”