I have been coaching in the Clark County School District for the past 13 years. I have witnessed first hand how important sports and extra curricular activities are to the academic success and the emotional health of our children.

I was absolutely devastated for the kids to hear that the upcoming 2022-2023 CCSD middle school basketball season is going to be shortened to only 7-8 games. A regular, standard season in the past has always been 14 games, plus a maximum of 2 tournaments plus playoffs at the end of the season. We have not had a regular basketball season since the 2019-2020 season. After multiple years of not having a regular season, everyone was hopeful that this was finally going to be the year that things return to normal. The kids deserve so much more than this. 7-8 games is a rec season, not a school season.

Our kids are still not okay and are suffering from the long term effects of living in a state with some of the most strict and restricting COVID lockdowns. Our current 8th graders didn't have a 6th grade season at all due to Covid, had a shortened 7th grade season, and now deserve to have a full length middle school season. These are years and experiences they will never get back!

Already this year, CCSD dramatically shortened the middle school flag football season in the fall. The flag football season has been very disappointing. Some teams were only given 4 games over a span of a 12 week season. This is not enough games to keep the kids engaged and to make the season meaningful. The flag football season was also supposed to be 14 games, plus a maximum of 2 tournaments plus playoffs at the end of the season.

Why, you might ask, is CCSS shortening middle school sports seasons? The excuse for this year as well as last year has been “lack of referees.” CCSD has a contract with the SNOA which allows the SNOA to assign their referees for all CCSD games. Since the SNOA doesn’t have enough referees to cover all of the high school and middle school games, the middle schools get the short end of the stick and their season gets shortened. Meanwhile there are other referee agencies besides the SNOA that have referees available and ready to work so the CCSD middle school basketball season doesn't need to be shortened! One agency, the NSCA, already filled out all of the paperwork to get approval and submitted it to the NIAA over a month ago. They were just informed that the NIAA wouldn't be voting to approve their application until January, which is when the middle school season starts. The current situation should be considered an "emergency” that requires the NIAA to vote and approve this agency before January so the kids get the regular length season that they deserve! Why wait until January? Why isn’t there a sense of urgency to do what is right for the kids? 

As of right now, it appears that CCSD is following protocol and is not being proactive to ensure that our students get a regular length basketball season. We need to get community support to sign this petition to show them that they need to be doing more for our kids to ensure that they get the season they deserve! If we don’t speak up, it appears this will be a new trend of shortened season after shortened season for our student athletes. Our kids deserve so much more.

I dedicate my life to these kids and want to do all I can to make sure our basketball season is back to normal this season for them. January is still two months away! We can get this resolved before basketball season!!