School sports postponed in Rockville Centre

Rockville Centre School District students will have to wait until January 2021 to play school sports, after a committee of Nassau County superintendents voted unanimously on Aug. 26 to postpone the fall season.

The decision was met with disappointment from parents of student-athletes in Rockville Centre, including Elizabeth Arnott, the mother of a ninth-grader, Matthew, and an eighth-grader, Sean, who take part in sports throughout the school year. “With free time, these kids are left with a lot of boredom, destructive behaviors and bad choices,” Arnott said. “When they don’t have sports after school, all the stress they hold all day long just sits there and festers, and they don’t get the release that they need.”

Arnott added that when Matthew heard he wouldn’t be able to run cross-country in the fall, he asked if he could attend a different school so he could. “It’s tough and disappointing for them,” she said.

The Arnotts attended a rally at Oceanside High School on Monday to show their support for holding a fall sports season. Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony D’Esposito was also there. “High school sports is not only about winning, it’s about getting on the field, getting on the court, making friends, making lifelong relationships,” D’Esposito said. “Learning how to win, learning how to lose, learning how to brush off a loss, move forward and get back out there and win again, and that’s what these kids need.

“We were in quarantine for months,” he added. “We wore masks, we used our hand sanitizer, we kept our social distance, we kept out of restaurants, we supported local business. We did everything that we possibly can, we flattened the curve, and now we’re here. We flattened the curve, and now it’s time to let these kids play. It benefits them at home, it benefits them in the classroom. It benefits them physically, mentally, in so many ways.”

At an emergency meeting on Aug. 26, seven Nassau superintendents voted to postpone all high school sports until Jan. 4, and Section VIII, the county’s designation for sports, became the first of the state’s 11 sections to do so.

“I believe other sections will follow and pull the plug, but I can’t speak for anyone else,” said Pat Pizzarelli, Section VIII’s executive director of athletics. “We felt strong enough to make this decision now. We took the cautious route, but we believe it’s in everyone’s best interests. There are too many unknowns.

“It’s just not time to allow kids to play sports,” Pizzarelli continued. “And my first and foremost concern is the safety of our student-athletes.”

The postponement came two days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that lower-risk high school fall sports — soccer, tennis, swimming, field hockey and cross-country — could begin practicing and playing on Sept. 21, while football and volleyball could begin practicing, but not competing.

“It was never a consideration to try playing even the lower-risk sports,” Pizzarelli said. “Transportation is a big issue. There are a lot of issues.”

The plan now, he explained, is to fit all three sports seasons in between January and June, when, school officials hope, the threat of Covid-19 will have declined. Each season will be condensed to nine weeks. “We’ll look to get started Jan. 4 with the traditional winter sports, including basketball and wrestling,” Pizzarelli said. The fall sports will be played in the second season, and spring sports will end the school year, as usual. He said that Section VIII would aim to limit season overlaps to one week at the most.

The 2020 spring season was nixed March 16, after just one week of practice, as the coronavirus deepened.

Andrew Garcia contributed to this story.