Since the start of the 2021-2022 school year, the government has greatly encouraged getting the COVID-19 vaccine. This has included Biden’s vaccine mandate, which requires businesses to ensure their employees to be fully vaccinated by January 4th. This mandate seems to have spread to CIF. For this year’s football season, CIF has announced that 18 players on each school’s football team will need to have the vaccine if they want their team to play. 

“I think it’s great, it’s amazing that these schools can take advantage of getting another chance,” says Mayra Gonzalez (9).  

Teams that have less than 18 players vaccinated will be disqualified from playing. The new requirement has made multiple schools upset. This announcement has caused one of the best football teams in the state to end their season prematurely. Crenshaw High School has had a 5 season winning streak which has just ended when they were disqualified – they only had 13 players who received the vaccine. And because teams like Crenshaw have been disqualified, it has given other teams a chance to play CIF for the first or second time. 

“I think it is unfair that the only teams going to CIF are only insufficient eligible players,” announced a LAUSD statement. 

Many of the teams who were disqualified decided to re-start their season all over again. Within the state of California, many schools decided to pursue this option.

Overall, the decisions of California to place these vaccination rules on their football teams may lead to other sports declaring the same requirements.