This spring, Bay Area high school coaches are leaning on a kind of football playbook of staggered schedules and tighter testing in a scramble to jam as many seasons as possible into a narrow March to June window. The goal is simple and a little desperate: rescue seasons for students who play indoor gym sports after months of COVID closures. In San Mateo County, some parents and student-athletes even went to court to push officials to reopen gym space.
The approach was detailed in “Different sport, same playbook,” which followed Menlo School student-athletes and parents as they filed a lawsuit against San Mateo County to reopen high school gyms, while athletic directors tried to run a long slate of sports simultaneously from March through June. As reported by the San Mateo Daily Journal, that list included golf, tennis, cross country, track, football, soccer, swim, water polo, lacrosse, baseball and softball, and possibly basketball, volleyball and badminton.
Stretching A Compact Schedule
State and section calendars were reshuffled so a single spring window could host multiple seasons, and CIF's Season 2 was slotted from March to June to absorb that crowded timetable. That compressed schedule leaves athletic directors juggling practice space, coaching staff and travel, all while trying to keep afternoon time slots and outdoor fields packed. Hometown Station outlined the revised lineup and the strain it places on smaller programs that are suddenly asked to do more with the same limited resources.
Why Parents Pushed Back
Advocates and parent groups, including those rallying under the #LetThemPlay banner, argued that the tiered rules treated high schools unfairly and that local mitigation and testing data showed a safer return was possible. Bay Area rallies and interviews with families highlighted lost opportunities, stalled recruitment hopes and mounting mental health concerns for sidelined athletes, as reported by ABC7.
Legal Pressure, Then Public Health Changes
A March 2021 legal challenge helped trigger a broader rethink. A settlement opened the door for indoor contests to return under college-style protocols, according to MaxPreps. Soon after, the California Department of Public Health updated youth sports guidance to require regular testing for indoor and high-contact sports and to ask schools for site-specific return-to-play plans, which became the framework districts and counties used to reopen gyms. See the updated guidance from the CDPH.
From Menlo To Duke: What Athletes Lose
For local athletes waiting on the sidelines, the stakes are personal. Charlotte Tomkinson, a 2020 Menlo graduate who went on to run for Duke and earned an ACC bronze as part of the distance medley relay, is one example of the pipeline coaches and parents were trying to protect. Her Duke profile ties that Menlo background to collegiate success, as noted by Duke Athletics.
For now, the playbook has produced a patchwork of starts and stops. Districts weigh testing costs and logistics, county health officers track local case rates and coaches redesign practice plans so more teams can squeeze in actual games. Families say the whole episode underscored how much is at stake when gyms close, and why many are still pressing for clearer, locally enforceable plans that keep kids competing safely.
