Facing uncertainty, fall sports coaches make do while Minnesota State High School League deliberates

Minnesotans will know within the next couple of weeks how or if kids will return to school this September, so discussions are also beginning on what that means for fall sports.

For Mike Grant running his summer football camps in Eden Prairie, the new rules, including pod sizes and questionnaires, are a new normal. He says he is trying to control what he can control.

“Normally we train in the weight room all summer. We have all our weight equipment outside. We’re training outside,” Grant said.

When it comes to fall sports, Grant knows there is little he can control.

“We may not play or we may start late or we may who knows?” he said. “We really don’t know. The answer is we don’t know and whether you’re at high school or division three or division one, none of us really know what’s going to happen.”

The preparation to return to fall sports was discussed at the Minnesota State High School League’s monthly meeting Tuesday and they don’t know yet either.

The league is preparing contingency plans ranging from full fall participation to shortened seasons, to nothing at all. One of the possibilities is moving fall sports to the spring.

Another topic of discussion is the financial impact of losing the fall sports season, which would bring a projected deficit of $466,000 to the league. If there are no winter sports, it jumps to $3.2 million deficit because tournaments are 80 percent of the revenue.

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