First of all, welcome to the new school year, and for all of our Freshmen, welcome to Beckman High School. For those Freshmen interested in participating in athletics at BHS, I hope your experiences have been positive thus far.

The past five months have caused us to re-think, re-work and flat out modify just about every facet of our lives. All levels of sports have been impacted and we're battling to find opportunities to participate and even view live sporting events at this time. There are also things much bigger than sports in the public purview now and over the next few months as we head into the November elections.

The goal of the Athletic Department during these next few months is to give our student-athletes some normalcy and a bit more balance than what they've likely experienced since last school year's shut down in mid-March.

At this moment, TUSD has approved our athletic programs to have team workouts under the NFHS Phase II guidelines for COVID with all workouts occurring outdoors. Here's what is being done:

• Masks being worn onto campus, during screening process and after workouts when leaving campus
• Screening process at the school gates which includes temperature check and questioning for symptoms
• Three distinct entry points for team check-ins to minimize crowding when multiple teams are conducting check-ins simultaneous.
• Shared equipment such as balls stays within a pod of students which has at most 10 to a pod
• Each athlete brings their own water bottle
• Social distancing of 6 ft is observed in drills and training

Our governing body for sports, CIF, modified the sports seasons to condense it from three seasons to only two. Here's what it looks like. Please communicate with your coach for more details.

Fall Season (December - Early March)

• Cheer
• Cross Country
• Football
• Boys and Girls Volleyball
• Boys and Girls Water Polo

Spring Season (Late February - End of May)

• Baseball
• Boys and Girls Basketball
• Boys and Girls Golf
• Boys and Girls Lacrosse
• Boys and Girls Soccer
• Softball
• Swim
• Boys and Girls Tennis
• Track
• Wrestling

Trying to minimize the number of bodies that come onto campus, we've created an email address to submit your athletic clearance forms. There have been some other changes to the process this year. Please refer to the Athletics page of the BHS website for details.

With regards to Transportation Fees this year, we're holding off making decisions until we have more information. Athletes will not show as being completely cleared until their transportation fee has been paid, but they may practice with their teams if everything else has been submitted. Please look for an update on Transportation Fees in October.

Patriots and their families, please be safe and healthy through this time! Wear your masks!