The MIAA Board of Directors made its return from summer vacation to hold its first meeting of the new year on Thursday, where the board decided to vote down a measure that would have required student-athletes to wear masks indoors for the fall sports season.
The board still recommends that student-athletes wear masks, but it will not require them to.
The decision was made because several members of the board stated that they preferred to keep the decision on masks to a local one from district to district, with the MIAA Sports Medicine Committee serving in an advisory role. According to the board, the Sports Medicine Committee has not made any formal recommendations on masks because it believes those policy decisions will be made at the local level.
The mask rule would have affected only volleyball for the fall season, which has moved back to its normal spot in the academic year after moving to the “Fall Sports II” season this past spring.
The board went on to vote on a Tournament Management Committee recommendation that would make any league, district or regional tournament championship games exempt from the regular season game limits. The board went on to approve the measure, provided that schools submit a formal request to the executive staff beforehand.
The board also welcomed six new members for this year in Pam Gould (Sandwich superintendent), Nicole Bottomley (Holliston principal), Thomas Anderson (New Bedford superintendent), Dave Bouchard (Quabog athletic director), Jim Quatromoni (Hingham athletic director) and Ellen Holmes (Ashburnham-Westminster school committee).
In addition, the board recognized retiring Executive Director Bill Gaine, who took part in his final meeting on Thursday. New Executive Director Dr. Bob Baldwin will take over operations on Monday.
Other votes by the board on Thursday included delaying the rule change that would require each team to have an athletic trainer present for football games and eliminating a volleyball rule change that would limit boys’ participation on mixed gender teams.
Following the cancellation of postseason play for three consecutive seasons, the board reported that the spring MIAA state tournament saw 22,346 student-athletes on 1,314 teams participate and 32 state championships handed out. The tournament was subsidized by a $350,000 grant from the American Rescue Plan.
The next MIAA Board of Directors meeting is scheduled for Sept. 28.
