The North Coast Section (NCS) of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF)  announced each sports’ schedule and designated them into COVID-19 tiers for the remainder of 2020-2021 in a press release on Jan. 14.

“It is our hope that this will allow all our student-athletes the opportunity to participate in the sports that they are so passionate about, even in this year of uncertainty and great sacrifice!” NCS wrote in the press release.

The Executive Committee created a sports calendar and placed each sport to a specific tier. The tier designates when a league is allowed to play a sport according to their county risk level. The different tiers are Purple, Red, Orange, and Yellow aligning with the county risk levels of Widespread, Substantial, Moderate, and Minimal respectively.  “What this means is, if approved as presented, leagues will set their seasons of sport based on the color tier that their county resides in and the sports allowed in that tier.” 

Due to “the complexity of each league’s schedules and the uncertainty of when they will be allowed to start their seasons,” the press release additionally included a total of ten decisions or rules – one specifically regarding the football season which must end by April 17 – and the rest applicable to all sports. These decisions included information such as that there will be no league championships or CIF state and league competitions, and students may only participate in one sport at a time. All sports competitions must take place no sooner than Feb. 1 and conclude by June 12. 

All of the information and proposed sports tiers are subject to the approval of the individual county where each league is located. Leagues must work with “the California Department of Public Health, the local counties that their league resides in, and the approval of their member schools and districts,” to finalize their sports calendar. 

Marin County is currently one of 54 counties out of 58 in California that remain in the Purple or Widespread Tier, where more than eight percent of the county has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week. 

This proposal was approved by the NCS Board of Managers during their meeting on Jan. 29 and is now in effect.