The Arizona Interscholastic Association's executive board voted Tuesday to allow more fans to attend winter season home games. 

But each district must first contact their local health officials to determine the amount of fans that can attend.  

“Even though the (COVID-19) numbers are going down, they are still high (compared) to the beginning of the fall season,” AIA Executive Director Hines said. “So we are hoping people are very reasonable to allow a few more people in their stands. But to open up completely would be not a good choice and not helpful to the community or the state of Arizona.”  

During Tuesday's monthly board meeting at the AIA, the board also agreed to continue the mask mandate in the remainder of the winter season, including the playoffs. 

On or about March 1, the board will discuss if the mandate will stretch into the spring sports season.

Football teams to remain in same conferences; New transfer modification approved

The board voted to accept two of the AIA’s Football Reclassification Committee’s recommendations that were made earlier this month. 

First, for the 2021-22 school year, football teams will remain in the same conferences they participated in during the 2020-21 school year. Schools can appeal their conference placement and will have five business days to do so after the minutes of Tuesday’s board meeting are posted. 

The 2021-22 team conference placement can be found here: https://www.aiaonline.org/alignments/activities/football

The meeting’s minutes will be posted here: https://www.aiaonline.org/about/meetings-agendas/executive/. The appeals will be heard on Feb. 25 by conference leaders. 

If an appeal is denied, schools will then have five business days to appeal to the AIA’s Executive Board, if they choose to do so. The AIA’s board will hear those appeals on March 15. 

The second recommendation the AIA’s board accepted was the start and end dates for the 2021-22 football seasons. The 1A will continue to follow its traditional schedule, per AIA bylaws. 

The 2A and 3A Conferences will delay the start of their seasons by a week and will begin practicing on Aug. 2, play 10 regular season games over a 10-week period and start their playoffs on Nov. 5. 

The 2A and 3A playoffs will end on Nov. 26 or 27. The 4A, 5A and 6A Conferences requested a two-week delay to start their seasons.

Those conference members will begin practicing on Aug. 9 and will play a 10-week schedule during an 11-week period (from Sept. 3-Nov. 12). Their playoffs will start on Nov. 17 and conclude Dec. 10-11.

More news from Tuesday's board meeting:

Spring sports student-athletes who transferred prior to Feb. 8 will be allowed to compete immediately with their spring teams. Schools will have to file a hardship appeal for an athlete to play if they transferred in after Feb. 8. 

--Based on the recommendation by 1A-6A Conference leaders, the board voted not to allow spring season teams to compete in regular season tournaments or invitationals.

This will allow teams to play their entire regular season schedules. Spring sports teams can start practicing on March 1 and competing on March 12, which was moved up from March 15, the original target date for first permissible day to start competition. 

There might be some limited possibilities with sports modifications for spring golf, tennis and track teams to compete in invites. 

--Per a Sports Medicine Advisory Committee recommendation, eight questions will be added to the pre-participation physical forms of student-athletes during the 2021-22 school year. 

--Queen Creek's athletic director, Renee Regoli, will replace Marcus Williams, who was recently hired by Arizona State, on the AIA's executive board. She will serve as the member representing the Arizona Interscholastic Athletic Administrator's Association (AIAAA).

--The annual Legislative Council meeting will be held at 9 a.m. on March 5 at Xavier College Prep High School. The meeting can be watched online on AZPreps365’s YouTube channel.

Click to watch the entirety of the Executive Board meeting.