NM prep coaches facing unusual preseason hurdles
Schools allowed to open summer sports programs June 15
The two catch words defining the parameters of the upcoming return of high school sports in New Mexico? Ratios. And pods.
On June 15 — or perhaps later, depending on each school district — coaches and high school athletes will have the option of jointly starting their summer programs carefully with restrictions and caution created by coronavirus concerns.
With the official start date (early August) of fall sports creeping ever so closer, this will be a slow rollout, to be sure, with conditioning and individual drills the two primary items being permitted by the New Mexico Activities Association.
And for most every sport, the following ratio will be a mandatory part of the return: 5 to 1. As in, five athletes working with one coach. And coaches working with their athletes in pods.
There are going to be numerous restrictions for coaches and athletes as New Mexico wades back into the pool. For example, there can be no more than six people working in an individual pod, including the coach, with the same five athletes “always working out together with the same coach to limit overall exposures,” according to the NMAA.
The number of indoor pods can not exceed three at any one time. Five pods is the outdoor limit. If the same team does multiple sessions on a single day, a coach must work with the same five athletes, but can rotate to five different athletes the following day.
And, the NMAA is requiring a minimum distance of six feet be kept between each person, not to mention the many cleaning and safety measures in place, both before and after workouts. Coaches will have to wear masks during workouts. Athletes will not. Coaches must be tested for COVID-19 before they can start phase one. Athletes won’t have to be tested but will be monitored daily with temperature taking.
Problem solving
Football coaches are perhaps going to be the most hamstrung by phase one’s guidelines, given the higher participation numbers. The good news? It’s possible that phase one may last only 2-3 weeks.
“It’s kind of impossible for us to do this phase, to be honest,” said Cleveland High football coach Heath Ridenour, who has nearly 200 players under the Storm umbrella. “It’s a tough situation for us right now.”
Football coaches in particular are faced with some proverbial forks in the road. Such as — and this may not bode well for players in younger grades — concentrating more heavily on the varsity roster. With coaches already having lost the past 2½ months in terms of training, weight lifting, football classes and the like, they’re already lagging far behind their normal calendar.
“Right now, I have nine coaches. The most we could have is 25 kids (for one session on one field),” Los Lunas football coach Jeremy Maupin said. There are approximately 130 players
in the Tigers’ program. “So we’ll probably have to do rolling times. And we may not get as much work done with our freshmen this summer, which is a bummer.”
One benefit for football, and soccer is they can use multiple fields, if more than one field is available. There can be five pods on one field and several pods at another. Still, the sessions will have to be staggered, so as to avoid large gatherings of athletes arriving at their school facilities simultaneously.
NMAA executive director Sally Marquez said while teams cannot yet occupy weight rooms — that comes in phase two — weights can be hauled outdoors, so long as they are regularly sanitized. The other rules are going to largely prohibit what many coaches would like to do, according to Ridenour.
“Not being able to touch a ball, or a pad, maintaining six feet (between athletes), makes it really difficult to be productive during this phase,” Ridenour said. “But we will find ways to utilize it.”
Said Maupin: “It’s hard for us. We’re a throwing offense and we can’t even throw balls to our wide receivers. We just have to get creative with what we have.”
Baseball and softball coaches have to make sure athletes don’t share balls, or gloves, or bats, and the balls in use will have to be cleaned individually, and regularly.
Out of the sun
Indoors, sports like volleyball and basketball face their own challenges.
“There’s a starting point for all of us,” longtime Rio Rancho High volleyball coach Toby Manzanares said. “And we’re trying to figure out how we can maximize … individual skill development within our pods of kids. Be flexible, be flexible, be flexible.”
Doing individual skill work in basketball, like shooting and dribbling drills, shouldn’t be overly problematic. But, as Cibola AD and boys basketball coach Ray Rodriguez points out, one of the trickier aspects of phase one is scheduling staggered gym sessions and balancing the needs of multiple boys and girls basketball teams, plus volleyball.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations with our coaches about who comes in when, and (making sure there are no) crossing of groups that are coming and going,” Rodriguez said.
Neither Albuquerque Public Schools nor Rio Rancho Public Schools has said when its sports teams will begin phase one, so coaches aren’t certain how to plan. Both districts are expected to pick a date this week. Las Cruces Public Schools already settled on June 22.
Soccer coaches have a definite advantage in phase one, insomuch as the feet are far more vital than the hands. In soccer and volleyball, each player will have to have his or her own ball.
“It’s a positive part for our sport,” Albuquerque
Academy girls soccer coach Peter Glidden said. “We have a lot of field space, so we can really spread out and try to utilize that, but I’m trying to think creatively, how do I group the kids? How many times a week are we going to try to get out?”
With the myriad restrictions in place, however, not everyone is excited to jump back into the fray.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t even run training under those circumstances,” said Lucien Starzynski, the boys soccer coach at Albuquerque High which won last year’s Class 5A state title. “To me, it just doesn’t make sense. I’ve got too many players, it would just be a nightmare to manage. We won’t start training until we can do something a lot closer to the real thing.”