CONCORD — The NHIAA is anticipating a return to normal in 2021-22.
At the organization’s annual media day Thursday, executive director Jeff Collins expressed cautious optimism about the upcoming fall season and athletic calendar year. He said a positive report from New Hampshire state epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan gave him hope, but that the pandemic’s fluidity could alter the circumstances quickly.
“I don’t know what the pandemic is going to bring,” Collins said. “We intend to have full crowds at championship games, down the road. As of week and a half ago, when Dr. Chan was on (a call) with school leadership, he was saying there’s no need to mask outside. So we’re hoping that we will have as much more normalcy for this year as possible.”
He said that a majority of schools across the state are making masks optional, though he noted each school is making its own decision regarding masks and those decisions could change at any moment.
Collins added that the NHIAA is following the guidelines of the Governor’s Economic Re-Opening Task Force. The task force established a game plan for amateur sports in May 2020, and updated them in April 2021. Collins said the NHIAA is not recommending any modifications to those plans.
He also recommended vaccination against COVID-19 to make the overall environment safer for both athletes and spectators.
“I think it’s important, as we move forward, we push ahead with the governor’s message that (a) good way forward is to get vaccinated and make sure we can provide these opportunities for the kids,” Collins said. “So that’s the game plan going into this year.”
In 2020, the NHIAA changed the schedule format for all sports due to COVID-19. Schools played a regionally focused schedule instead of facing teams in the same division.
This year, the schedules will go back to divisional games. This will return the standings to normal, which will make playoff tournament seeding more direct.
Additionally, Collins said, the NHIAA football championships will remain on high school fields.
Collins said Thursday that the University of New Hampshire will not be available for this year’s finals, and so the title games will be played at a high school that’s a neutral site. He added that a survey of member schools from the end of last year showed a neutral location was preferred to the higher seed hosting the game. Each game will be played at a different location.
Collins also promoted the annual New Hampshire Tackles Hunger food drive for the NH Food Bank.
In 2020, the virtual food drive — collecting only money donations — raised over $81,000 for local food pantries. In the seven previous years, when the event was in-person at high school football games across the state, the food drive collected 455,000 pounds of food.
The event will return to the high school football games this year. Collins said it’s typically held on “rivalry weekend,” but that weekend could vary depending on when each school plays its rival in football.
“The food insecurity issue hasn’t hit the pause button just because we are under the pandemic,” Collins said. “So anything we can do with those food pantries is a great thing that we do.”
Seth Tow can be reached at stow@vnews.com.