In what Grays Harbor College Athletic Director Will Rider dubbed as “disappointing,” the Northwest Athletic Conference has canceled all championship contests for the 2020-21 season.

The announcement earlier this week from the organizing body’s executive board “agreed that all sports, excluding cross country, scheduled to begin winter term, will resume competition March 1, 2021,” but added that “all NWAC postseason contests are canceled.”

The statement from the NWAC Executive Board did leave some wiggle room for the potential to have regionalized playoff/championship contests as to be defined by each region’s member institutions, but as Rider explained it, the NWAC has no interest in tackling that issue at this time.

“Right now, they don’t want to go there as far as postseason activities,” he said. “My job is to try to get them to revisit that again, and if there are other athletic directors with that same mindset, maybe we can collectively get them to look at that again. But right now, it’s just speculation. We’re optimistic, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Not much has changed as far as the scheduling is concerned as the earliest NWAC competition can begin is March 2 with the end date for all sports being completed no later than June 15. The only exception being cross country, which is scheduled to start Feb. 13.

Grays Harbor College still plans to have sports seasons for its relative teams at this time. Based on the NWAC calendar, there are three early phases (Gray, Red and Yellow) that will culminate with a final, competitive Green phase. The total maximum amount of contests during the Green phase are 20 for men’s and women’s soccer, 20 for baseball and softball, 24 games for men’s and women’s basketball and 27 matches for volleyball.

“The Executive Board believes this decision is beneficial to our student-athletes by keeping them engaged, academically and physically. There is no perfect answer to this difficult and challenging situation we face,” NWAC Executive Director Marco Azurdia said in a press release.

“It’s a difficult position for the NWAC to be in right now as it is for all institutions,” Rider said. “Whether you talk about college presidents, ADs or coaches overseeing the development of student-athletes, everybody has been put in a tough situation and — certainly — we are in unprecedented times.”

If and when play resumes, finding opponents might be a bit of a problem for the Chokers. With teams being limited to playing within their own sub-region, Rider stated GHC teams have already had to cut approximately 20% from their schedules.

According to Rider, some schools within the West Region are considering suspending all or some sports competition this season, adding another layer of complexity to an unprecedented process.

“The question now is can we continue to give these kids a legitimate schedule and give them a chance to develop some skills? Because they are still committed.” he said. “They are still a full-time student-athlete that goes to practice every day, working hard and trying to improve. We want to be able to hopefully give them something in return for that.”

While the recent news was not what the GHC AD wanted to hear, Rider is optimistic that things can still turn around.

“Though there is some disappointment there with the decisions regarding postseason play, I still believe we have a long enough time period to wait,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of changes occurring in the COVID landscape to potentially allow some things to be revisited next spring before the time for postseason can begin.”

Regardless of how it plays out, Rider said he will be there to fight for his student-athletes.

“My encouragement to everyone is I’m here to lobby for athletics and student-athletes. I’m going to advocate for them every chance I get,” he said. “When I go back into the NWAC meetings, I’ll continue to try to push for change and adaptation. And as new evidence comes forward and new safeguards are put into place, as the vaccine comes out and these things start to develop and progress to our benefit, I’m hoping we can revisit these decisions and put them back on the table to be voted on later.”