Sporting Events Cancelled Due to Heat?

By Andrew Naimark, Sports Editor

Some sports games were cancelled today in the school district due to the heat wave in San Diego. SDA Athletic Director Justin Conn said that he evaluates the conditions each day and judges whether or not to allow practices to continue. As of right now, he said that he had no plans to cancel any sporting events at SDA himself.

However, a few games have been cancelled for SDA teams due to other schools’ decisions. These sports affected include tennis, volleyball and water polo but he does not know what the other schools are planning for the rest of the week.

He also said that because we have not cancelled any sporting events here, that he talks with coaches to insure that proper precautions are taken such as frequent water breaks, shortened practices, and widespread awareness of heat exhaustion symptoms.

He did add, however, that although SDA is not cancelling games, he would never question another athletic director’s decision to cancel events as he understands that athlete safety is the number one priority. He also said that he knows that athletic directors are being put in tough positions by being forced to weigh safety risks versus the games or practices.
When asked about any parent complaints, he said that he had not received any emails from “angry parents” but had gotten one or two emails from parents who were just inquiring about the protocol to handle the heat. Conn said he understood the concerns from the parents but trusts coaches to handle situations accordingly.