Another week, another big announcement that impacts our school kids. This time, it was the Minnesota State High School League making decisions regarding fall sports. Not surprisingly, reactions ranged from relief to outrage.
Let’s review, at least as far as this impacts our NRHEG athletes. Cross country can go on as planned. There are some adjustments to how many teams can compete in a meet and how many meets they can have, but a sport that is physically distanced intentionally seems safe to operate.
Football and volleyball, however, are postponed to mid-March. Their seasons will run until mid-May. Our spring sports of baseball, softball, track, and golf will begin mid-May and run into July. In theory, we could have some four-sport athletes this year! It’ll be interesting to see if some football and volleyball players run cross country to stay in shape.
Let’s examine both sides of this contentious decision. One thing I know was that it was a mistake to scroll through Facebook and Twitter after the announcements! John Millea, the man who tweets out info for the MSHSL, was inundated by angry tweeters. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger!
People are angry. I get it. Especially if you have a varsity player, you want to go ahead and play sports this fall. You might point out the statistics. As of my first draft, according to the Star Tribune, the four communities that make up our school district had a total of about 25 cases of COVID since this started. That’s a pretty low number, and you might suggest that would show we can go ahead and play.
On the other hand, you could look at one of our football foes, based in Lake Crystal. The city of Lake Crystal itself has had more cases than our entire district. Add in how close it is to Mankato, a current hotspot, and there’s a bit more concern. After all, we might be in good shape, but could playing LCWM cause an outbreak here?
Football is such a difficult beast to tame during a pandemic. I was recently reading how some NFL players want daily tests to ensure safety and prevent outbreaks like MLB has seen. Major college football programs have cut their schedules. But in the most telling sign, smaller colleges, those closest to high school in terms of how they run things, are shutting down their seasons left and right. Some leagues are doing the same as the MSHSL and moving football to the spring.
I’m sure there is some concern about the weather and how playing on the field in spring could impact both the play and the field conditions. I would argue that we’ve seen the same issues during the fall when teams play in downpours and tear the field apart. The same thing seems certain to happen in April when snow is melting and rain is falling. Football, though, is a sport that can play in just about anything short of a thunderstorm.
Volleyball is being shifted mainly because it’s indoors. There’s a lot of closeness up at the net as players are breathing heavily while exerting themselves. The ongoing studies on how the virus spreads during events like that seem to show a further spread since you wouldn’t expect athletes to wear masks.
So how does this impact the traditional spring sports? In a positive vein, the weather should be much nicer! Usually, any events scheduled the first couple weeks of April are either rescheduled or miserable. Baseball and softball are severely impacted by wet conditions and just can’t play many times. Moving them to a time period that many kids play anyway is beneficial to completing a full schedule.
The opposite side of that is we already see decreasing summer numbers with our high schoolers. Everyone seems to want a job, and I understand that. However, I also think that a couple hours a day playing ball is something you’ll regret not doing later in life. There is a certain point you can no longer play ball, and those of us at that age would give anything for one more summer on the diamond.
But there is a concern about a decrease in numbers this year, especially among seniors. It might be hard to be motivated after you graduate to come in every day and participate in a sport. This could also impact the marching band since now kids will have marching band practice and a sports practice, though it’s not much different from the summer camps that usually happen. Still, Iowa has done softball and baseball in the summer for years, and they make it work.
What people have to remember is this is a (hopefully) one-year fix. I’d rather see sports work out this way than to see fall sports start up, only to have to shut down because of a virus outbreak. When professional athletes are pulling the pin on playing this year, we can step back and think twice about our kids.
I want to watch our students compete. I’m already at the point where I miss the microphone and announcing for events. Now I have to wait until December. (Please, please let basketball and wrestling happen.) But I get it. I’ll get my fix next spring. And the following fall!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is pugnacious, which means having a quarrelsome nature, as in, “The pugnacious Tweeters let their thoughts be known after the MSHSL decision about fall sports.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!