▪ New playbook for high school coaches, players.
Coaches, athletes busy keeping up with guidelines for offseason workouts
How’s your summer going? Did you have fun on vacation? Are you doing anything exciting this weekend?
Those are some questions high school coaches might ask athletes this time of year at team workouts in preparation for the fall season.
This year, those questions have been replaced with more serious queries: “Do you have symptoms of COVID-19?;” “Has anyone in your household been diagnosed with COVID-19?;” and “Have you been in contact with anyone that has tested positive for COVID-19?”
At workouts, you will see more hand sanitizers than high-fives, more emphasis on wearing face masks than not committing facemask penalties, and more thermometer checks than checking to see if a drill is done correctly.
In the past month, most schools started preseason workouts for football and other fall sports. Some basketball teams are working out, too. Players and coaches are adjusting to the abnormal times by implementing return-to-play plans that have become the new normal.
“This is a learning process for everybody,” Peters Township football coach T.J. Plack said.
A roadblock already has been hit after an increased number of positive tests in Allegheny and surrounding counties. Many schools suspended workouts last week in response to Gov. Tom Wolf’s facemask order which made it mandatory they be worn in public spaces outdoors when a distance of 6 feet cannot be consistently maintained, and Allegheny County’s order that gatherings of more than 25 people were prohibited for one week.
Most of those schools will resume Monday, along with temperature checks (those tested at 100.4 degrees or higher are sent home immediately), symptom/ contact questions and social distancing. Use of locker rooms is prohibited and players must bring their own water bottles.
At Woodland Hills, former Wolverines football star Lafayette Pitts, who now plays for the Indianapolis Colts, is helping out with strength and conditioning, a role that includes some other tasks, as well.
“He’s done a phenomenal job checking the guidelines, making sure they have masks, and testing when they come in the door,” said girls basketball coach Von Pitts, Lafayette’s uncle. “I take the temperatures upon their arrival and make sure the spacing is being followed.”
If a player or coach tests positive for COVID-19, schools are asking them to quarantine for 14 days, as per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
The use of masks has been a hot topic especially with temperatures consistently reach 90 degrees last week. That has to do with some being unclear as to how the governor’s mask guidelines
apply to high school sports.
Canon-McMillan football coach Mike Evans said he and his staff are wearing masks during workouts. At Peters Township, girls soccer coach Pat Vereb said players must wear a mask until they step on the field. The mask can then come off.
Pine-Richland football coach Eric Kasperowicz said his players have had masks on even when they are on the field.
Cleaning equipment is another important protocol. Evans said his team has two sets of balls. One will be used, then sanitized, and the other will be used the following day. After a sled is used, it’s cleaned before the next player uses it. Plack said his school’s weight room is disinfected after each use. An assistant, Darrin McMillon, sanitizes footballs before each practice.
“Anytime we use any kind of equipment, we’ll clean it,” Apollo-Ridge football coach John Skiba said. “Any hand shields that are used, we’ll sanitize them. The same with footballs.”
Staying socially distanced with 50 to 100 players on the same football field isn’t simple or clear-cut.
“Our plan, and that of many other schools, says social distance whenever it’s feasible,” Evans said. “But that’s hard to understand with sports like soccer, basketball and football. I don’t know how you stay socially distanced when you are practicing football.”
Mike McDonald is the athletic director and girls volleyball coach at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and chairman of the WPIAL volleyball committee. He said one of his main goals is to keep his team’s workout area as clean as possible, even if it means adjusting their training. The Chargers began working indoors, but, like the rest of OLSH’s fall teams, have recently transitioned to outside workouts and conditioning.
“Most of our summer stuff is skill training as it is,” he said. “Ballhandling, skill acquisition. We’ll probably do some jump and movement training.”
The Rochester girls basketball team has been working out on the school’s outdoor courts, as well as the football stadium. Coach C.J. Iannini said combining safety with creativity has been key. He has eight players on the track working on strength training and cardio, and the other eight spaced out on the courts. When they enter the courts, they sanitize their hands and the balls are cleaned.
“We’re going to take a very slow approach to this.” Iannini said. “We’re going to utilize our outdoor courts and our track and bleachers. We’re going to keep our groups to 10 or less and make sure we abide by social distancing guidelines, but we’re going to make it as positive as we can.”
With stay-at-home orders in March and then a slowpaced reopening, parents are understandably concerned with their child’s well-being now that they’re around so many peers.
“I think it’s all over the map,” Vereb said. “Some are super concerned. Some are just so happy to have their son or daughter back on the field. But they’re not divisive.”
Central Valley football coach Mark Lyons has been in no rush to get his team back on the field. The Warriors won’t get started until July 20. “I remember back when I started in this coaching 30 years ago, you’d talk to some of the longtime coaches like [Beaver’s] Pat Tarquinio and [Beaver Falls’] Larry Bruno,” Lyons said. “They’d tell you that it used to be that nothing happened until the first day of preseason camp [in August].
There was no such thing as summer conditioning.
“Well, we’re almost to that point this year. But with this case, maybe we should listen to our forefathers and those legends, and take a page out of their book.”
The story of the 2020 fall sports season is still being written. One of the biggest questions is what’s next? Football teams are scheduled to hold acclimatization the week of Aug. 10; the first day of practice for all sports is Aug. 17. A lot can change before then, but for now, when will the training wheels come off and teams begin to get more aggressive with their training?
“We’ll have to go through things live at some point,” Moon football coach Ryan Linn said.