South Florida high school football begins amid COVID-19
Kickoff was finally — and this year it really felt like finally — just two hours away and Matthew Bishop was putting in place the final pieces to make sure Chaminade-Madonna was ready to host Champagnat Catholic, when he got another piece of disconcerting news. It was 5 p.m., which meant it was time for an update from the National Hurricane Center and, apparently, it was a little worrisome.
“Someone said, ‘Hey, you ready for this tropical storm?’ ” the ChaminadeMadonna athletic director said. “I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”
After months of postponing and canceling high school sports because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Friday was the unofficial return of high school athletics in South Florida, so of course, in 2020, a tropical depression was threatening it.
Ultimately, Friday brought nothing more than some scattered showers, and Chaminade-Madonna and Champagnat ushered in high school football season in the Miami metropolitan area with a meeting between defending state champions in Hollywood.
“It was really exciting, man,” said Champagnat wide receiver Malike Rutherford, who is orally committed to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. “COVID couldn’t hold us out for long.”
It was an opening night unlike any before. Only about a dozen teams across Miami-Dade and Broward counties opened their seasons, and even they were technically a week late — the Florida High School Athletic Association let the regular season begin Sept. 4 even though about half the state decided to delay even further.
On Friday, a small group of parents camped out just outside of the fence to sneak glimpses at the action. Champagnat brought its own chairs from Hialeah so it could properly space out on the sidelines. Players wore masks and the referees entirely avoided touching the ball, instead placing a beanbag where the ball would be snapped and asking the center to spot the ball himself.
“It was too quiet, and then you can’t shake hands after the game and then the kids are spotting the ball,” Chaminade-Madonna coach Dameon Jones said. “It’s crazy.”
Still, he was thrilled just to be coaching a game, especially while so many of his peers awaited word from their districts about when they might be able to start.
On Friday, Florida confirmed 3,650 new cases of the coronavirus and 176 additional deaths, with a positivity rate of 5.53 percent across the state. In Miami-Dade County, the percent positivity was 4.86 and Broward was even better at 3.19 percent.
Chaminade-Madonna is currently using a hybrid model, with students in classrooms twice a week and learning remotely twice a week. Bishop said he was not concerned with starting athletics even as most of the region holds off for virus concerns.
“We’re a smaller school,” Bishop said. “Our students are in classes two days a week. We’re doing the hybrid model, but we’re able to do that, whereas you’ve got schools that are by the thousands — we have less than 500 kids in the building. ... Our size kind of worked to our advantage in that situation whereas a lot of these schools are just so big you can’t do that.”
The players were roundly thrilled to get back to action.
Chaminade-Madonna started conditioning in July with players coming to the school once a week to work out on the field. They had their temperatures taken as they entered the facilities and Jones made a symptom questionnaire for his players to fill out.
The first few days weren’t pretty. The big guys showed up overweight and the little guys showed up skinny. Chaminade-Madonna defensive tackle Allan Haye said he swapped out real sports for lots of NBA 2K and Madden NFL, and he showed up for conditioning about 20 pounds heavier than he would’ve liked. Individual weightlifting and mile runs couldn’t cut it.
“Conditioning by yourselves is not the same,” said Haye, who is committed to the Miami Hurricanes. “Somebody else pushing you, it’s easier to get back in shape faster, but when you’re by yourself, you give yourself breaks, and this and that. When we got back, it’s not the same as being by yourself.”
Chaminade-Madonna ultimately won 27-14. It wasn’t as ugly as it could’ve been, but penalty flags still flew with frequency. Neither team threw the ball particularly well and no one was quite in as good of shape as they would’ve hoped.
Still, it was football and that was the only thing that mattered after such a long offseason without any.
“It feels good because I thought we weren’t going to play,” said ChaminadeMadonna running back Thad Franklin, another Miami commit, “but we are, so it’s a good feeling.”