We sat down with David Shapiro late last week to discuss the plans for Arizona cross country in 2020. Watch the above video to get the full interview with Coach Shapiro.
Who is David Shapiro?
Will there be a season?
David Shapiro is cautiously optimistic that there will be a season come 2020, but there may be some changes that will have to arise due to the current pandemic we are dealing with across the U.S. and in Arizona.
State Meet location
As of now it will be still at Cave Creek Golf Course as it has been for the past 15 years, but if the meet needed to be broken down to a 2-day meet to enable social distancing then the location will need to be changed.
Will the season start on time?
It could, but it may be more practical to think of the season starting after Labor Day, but again nothing has been confirmed in this regard at all by the AIA.
Same number of cross country Meets this season?
That may not happen. Shapiro feels that could be a good thing for cross country because he feels many teams over race their kids as it is. There may be little to no dual meets during the week and the amount of invitationals may be limited by number of athletes allowed to compete.
Ideas to make it all work at AIA Cross Country State
Some ideas batted around to make the AIA State Meet work in November, if the state is still under strict crowd and social gathering limitations, would be the following:
- 2-day state meet instead of 1.
- Potential staggered start.
- Race #1 runners with #1s, #2s with #2s, etc.
High school distance runners and coaches out there, while obviously things could always change on a weekly basis here in Arizona due to COVID-19, we can be cautiously optimistic that some semblance of a cross country season will occur in 2020...fingers, toes, and shoelaces crossed.