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Legislators urge Lamont to join football discussion as players prepare to rally Wednesday

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As Connecticut high school football players prepared to rally Wednesday evening at the Capitol in Hartford to save their season, state legislators from both sides of the aisle urged Gov. Ned Lamont to join the dialogue.

Lamont later casually pitched shifting the season to early 2021 in his daily press briefing. Meanwhile, state Senate Republicans asked the acting state Department of Public Health commissioner to clarify her guidance to the CIAC on the sport.

Two open letters to Lamont from state representatives suggested he meet with the CIAC and DPH to work out a path to a season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CIAC announced on Friday it would not hold 11-on-11 football competition this fall after DPH again wouldn’t recommend playing, citing the sport’s higher risk for the spread of COVID-19.

“At the very least,” read a letter from House Democrats, dated Tuesday, “we ask that the conversation between DPH and CIAC be continued so that parents, athletes and administrators can be on the same page regarding the rationale for decision making for each of the Fall sports.”

Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz, a Democrat, is Berlin’s football coach.

“If it’d be helpful to sit down with Public Health and football,” Lamont said at his briefing, “I’d be happy to do that.”

East Haven senior Trey Garea, one of the organizers of Wednesday’s rally, said he was in school Tuesday watching the political support for high school football roll in, gratified to see it.

“It feels fantastic,” Garea said.

The state’s Phase 2 reopening rules allowed football games and practices since July 6.

“As you are aware, Connecticut youth have been playing football along with all other team sports over the past several months,” said the letter from the House Republican Office, dated Monday, “and this has not led to a spike in our infection rate.”

Lamont said in his briefing that he loves football and understands its importance to players and families.

“I also know we want to do things safely,” he said.

About to hand the briefing over to Albert Ko, co-chair of his ReOpenCT Advisory Group and department chair and professor of epidemiology and medicine at Yale, Lamont said, “Albert’s going to tell you how the world could change in the next four months (with a vaccine) and how we have a football season early next year as opposed to doing it right now.”

Ko did not specifically discuss the football season. Lamont later reiterated that he’d prefer a season later in the school year.

The CIAC has said it does not intend to move any sports canceled in the fall to the spring, though some coaches are pushing to plan a shortened season in March and April.

Players from at least 30 teams are expected at Wednesday’s rally, which has been moved back to 5 p.m. after briefly being set for noon.

“Look at the numbers: That’s what we want to get across,” Garea said. “We want cold, hard facts to prove football is high-risk.

“They’ve never given us specific numbers that ‘this is too many cases.’ We don’t know; we haven’t even started to play yet.”

A Sunday rally in West Hartford was more impromptu but still drew more than 100 players and a similar-sized crowd of parents and other supporters. Monday brought a rally in New Canaan.

On Tuesday afternoon, state Senate Republicans cited the state’s low COVID-19 numbers, hospitalizations and deaths in their letter to acting DPH commissioner Deidre Gifford, asking under what metrics the department felt football could be played.

“Obviously your decision to recommend against playing football certainly is the safest decision and provides for zero risk,” said the letter, dated Tuesday. “However, it seems that there should be more required of DPH to assess and weigh the risks and provide a more detailed analysis and recommended solutions.”

The back-and-forth comes as Valley Regional announced on Monday it would not open Tuesday and Wednesday, with extracurriculars canceled as well, for cleaning and contact tracing after two students tested positive for COVID-19.

The Hartford Courant reported that Middletown athletics had shut down late last week after two students tested positive. That city’s board of education voted on Tuesday night to allow practices in all sports to resume on Wednesday.