An autumn ritual – high school football-  will have to take place in late winter and early spring in New York State, if it takes place at all.

The New York State Public High School Athletic Association announced on Wednesday that “high-risk” sports football, volleyball and cheerleading will move its start dates to March 1, 2021, which also means a move of the start of spring sports to April 19, back from its original March 15 start date.

Meanwhile, low-risk” sports – soccer, field hockey, tennis, cross country, golf and swimming, could go on if schools and sections desired.

“It’s’ clear that administering high-risk fall sports during the COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge for our member schools,” said NYSPHSAA executive director Dr. Robert Zayas.

The road to this historic shift in the traditional course of high school sports was long and eventful, and only accelerated when, on Aug. 24, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that schools in New York State could have fall sports.

With every intention to start fall sports on Sept. 21 as planned, NYSPHSAA, on Aug. 31, announced that the winter sports start date was pushed back two weeks, from Nov. 16 to Nov. 30.

Meanwhile, individual sections started to reach their own decisions on whether to play or not. Section VIII (Nassau County, Long Island) originally announced a delay of sports until Jan. 1, only to say they would reconsider that decision after a loud backslash from students, coaches and parents.

At the same time, Section XI (Suffolk County, Long Island) voted to go ahead with fall sports and Section I, consisting of the counties north of New York City, voted to start soccer, field hockey, cross country and tennis on Sept. 29, pushing its start date back a week.

Then, on Sept. 4, NYSPHSAA released its 49-page guide, called “Return to Interscholastic Athletics”, where the rules for all low-risk fall sports were laid out along with a deadline to finish the season by Dec. 31 if they went ahead.

They included plenty of protocols about social distance, sanitation of game equipment and avoiding contact whenever possible, whether it was discouraging hugs and high-fives to modifying pre and post-game behavior for players, coaches and officials.

Left out, though, were any guidelines for “high-risk” sports, football and volleyball, who were still prevented from anything beyond practices.

As this week started, all 106 Section III schools received a survey from sectional officials outlining three possible options for the fall – (1) go with the state guidelines, (2) do the same but move football and volleyball to Jan. 1 if their status was not changed, or (3) move all sports to Jan. 1.

Not waiting, Cooperstown was the first Section III school to bow out of the fall season, citing student safety and financial concerns caused by a possible 20 percent cut in state aid.