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Schools in Michigan are preparing to start their winter sports programs and the Michigan High School Athletics Association has issued some interesting rules and guidelines when it comes to wearing masks.
The state’s athletics association is requiring all basketball players, hockey players, and cheerleaders to wear masks at all times even if they receive a negative test. Those same rules don’t apply for wrestlers, however. High school wrestlers don’t have to wear masks during competition, instead, they’ll be required to provide a negative test on either the day of or the day prior to competition.
Seriously, those are the rules.
“Basketball: All participants must wear masks at all times. Even if an individual receives a negative rapid or PCR test, a mask must still be worn during competition,” the guidelines state. Guidelines for competitive cheer (which they recognize as a non-contact sport) and hockey outline the same rules, that a mask must be worn at all times.
“Wrestling: All participants must have a negative rapid antigen test on either the day before (done in conjunction with home weigh-in) or day of a meet or a negative PCR test within 72 hours of competition. All tested wrestlers would be able to compete without wearing a mask during the match.”
These mask rules are interesting, to say the least. Why basketball players, cheerleaders, and hockey players have to wear masks at all times even with a negative test while wrestlers don’t doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Earlier this year, Boston University mandated that all of its athletic opponents wear masks during games on their campus this season, which includes during basketball games. The Terriers tipped off their season on Monday on the road at Holy Cross but still chose to have its players wear masks during the game.