Bishop Diego’s football conditioning workouts were ordered shut down until further notice by the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department after the team’s Tuesday practice, Athletic Director Aaron Skinner said.
Skinner said a new health order issued due to the surge in novel coronavirus cases in the county and the state was the reason the practices were stopped.
“(The SBCPHD) said the new health order is not allowing outdoor fitness or conditioning at schools,” Skinner told Noozhawk. “They indicated that they have received word that specific guidance related to schools and school activities will be released very soon by the California Department of Public Health.”
The Bishop Diego football team had been conducting restricted workouts since last Monday. At the practices, the team was broken into pods of 10 players and had to follow social distancing protocol. In addition, there was no handling of footballs.
An independent private school, Bishop Diego was the only high school football team in the county that was doing conditioning workouts last week.
Athletic teams at public schools on the South Coast and in the North County were prohibited by their school districts from beginning workouts due to the surge in novel coronavirus cases.
St. Joseph High, a private school in Santa Maria, started workouts on June 22, but they were stopped after one week due to the spike of cases.
Also on Tuesday, all athletic teams at public and private high schools and colleges throughout Ventura County were ordered to stop summer workouts by the health department.
The department said in a Twitter post that “the prohibition includes gathering together for games, practices, physical conditioning drills and any other group activity that involves two or more people gathering for an organized team activity.”
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.