Some stray from game plans
Opening the season with a pair of road games was a coup for Huffman Hargrave.
Hargrave’s home opener is against Bridge City on Friday after trips to Stafford and Needville. The school and community have its first test at following the University Interscholastic League risk mitigation guidelines for COVID-19, which include capping stadium capacity at 50 percent and groups of spectators socially distanced in the stands. Two weeks into 2020, some schools have egregiously ignored those rules.
Hargrave football head coach Mike McEachern has been watching much like the rest of the state is with Class 4A and smaller schools wrestling a pandemic-altered season while Class 6A and 5A schools playing at the end of this month wait and hope for no stoppages.
“In the same sense, it’s almost like a guinea pig scenario,” McEachern said.
Last week’s stern warning from the UIL to follow risk mitigation guidelines spurs the schools, too.
The warning came after a Week 1 filled with scenes of packed stadiums going wayward of the guidelines. The league added in a letter: “Schools not following these guidelines are subject to sanctions, including suspension of contests or discontinuation of public access to games by the local UIL District Executive Committee and/or UIL State Executive Committee.”
Everyone is watching in the social media era. Pictures a packed Lampasas home game in Week 1 brought much chagrin concerning the guidelines, for example.
Some schools are being praised for following the rules. Video of Crane’s stands circulated depicting fans and even players on the sideline socially distanced at the 3A school 50 miles south of Midland. Every other row is closed at Crane’s stadium, which through the season’s first two weeks is common throughout the state but not widespread. Some schools are asking spectators to social distance on their own, sending reminders through the public address announcer or signage. Fans at Crane have complied with everything they’ve been asked to do.
Socially distancing players on the sideline is a sight not often seen so far this year, though. All the UIL warning does for Crane coach Jeff Cordell is place more belief in his own school’s measures.
“That was big because a lot of people thought we were possibly going overboard on the things that we were doing,” Cordell said. “But again, we want to play.”
COVID-19 transmissions are slowing, and hospitalizations are on the decline statewide but Texas and the deep South are still considered hotspots. Dallas County just downgraded its risk level to orange or “extreme caution.” Harris County is still at the highest or red level. Franklin County, with a population of 10,738 in East Texas, had 117 cases as of Friday.
It’s the other hurdle as to why the UIL guidelines have produced mixed results in two weeks — ideology over the virus. The virus isn’t ravaging small towns compared to Houston, Dallas or Austin. Opinions on the virus and its impact differ across the state.
“To me, it’s really one’s opinion about how important or how potent COVID-19 really is,” Cordell said. “Some people see the virus as being something very serious. Some people see it as being a hoax. The ones that see it as being a hoax and the stuff that’s being put down by the UIL and the CDC and all that, because they think it’s a hoax, they think it’s overkill and we shouldn’t have to follow it. We shouldn’t have to live in fear or live in a bubble. Others take it seriously.”
Count Cordell as one taking the virus seriously. He’s seen COVID-19 at work, noting a staff member contracted it.
Tarkington coach Zach Bass is serious about guidelines, too. He has 13 coaches on his staff, all with wives or significant others and some with children or even expecting.
There is an open area on the turf away from the action reserved for coaches’ families at Tarkington’s stadium, which also allows the school to fit more parents of players or band members into the stands.
Bass has coaching stops at bigger schools such as La Porte, Port Arthur Memorial and Port Neches-Groves. He noted the undertaking to prepare stadiums to fit UIL guidelines and enforce said guidelines is massive for some smaller schools.
There is still no way around the responsibility of being the first schools in the state to enforce safety precautions and some of the responsibility falls on spectators.
“The governor can issue a mandate,” Bass said. “We can enforce the protocols. People are going to make the decisions on their own. We can put all the signs out there that we want. We have to entrust in their power to make the right decisions. I coach a football game. Administrators have to make sure other things are taken care of. So, you hope grown people are able to police themselves a little bit.”