LOCKER- ED OUT
Pandemic puts twist on high school football
New Castle High School’s football team has been playing games at ol’ Taggart Stadium for close to 100 years, and coach Joe Cowart sees his team’s locker room there as a place with … character.
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘ nice’ as a description for it,” Cowart said with a laugh. “Let’s say it’s … charming.”
Old. Ancient. Quaint. Charming. All of those adjectives might fit New Castle’s locker room. But one other word describes the place for this season.
Empty. Just like many other football locker rooms across Western Pennsylvania.
High school football practices are in full gear at many schools, and the first regular- season games for teams in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League are Friday. While the COVID- 19 pandemic already has made this a season like no other, the locker room situations add to the strangeness.
No one’s home in the locker rooms at the many WPIAL schools that are not permitting football players to enter at all — for practice or games. It’s for safety reasons, keeping a large group of people from gathering indoors and
hoping to lessen the chances of spreading the coronavirus that triggers the respiratory illness.
“It’s different, but it’s almost par for the course for this season,” Cowart said. “Everything is so outside normal or regular that it’s just one more thing on the checklist and one more thing to say, ‘ OK, how do we do this now?’ ”
A football locker room can be an inner sanctum for teams, even at the high school level. During the season, it can be a home away from home. Time is spent in the locker room before and after practices. Sometimes video is watched there. Bonds can be formed between players, and team camaraderie and chemistry can be built. Heck, tomfoolery can create unforgettable moments.
But now, some locker rooms are locked up.
“A football locker room is a rare place, like a hockey locker room,” Cowart said. “It smells a particular way, it feels a particular way. I still remember things from when I was in my high school and college locker rooms.”
At high school football practices or games this season, you will see things you have never seen before. At Carlynton practices, players walk onto the field to an assigned spot that is socially distant from others. They will wear their football pants to practice before pulling the rest of their equipment out of a bag to finish dressing on the field.
Visiting teams will come to a game almost entirely dressed, besides shoulder pads and helmets. Pregame team meetings will be held in a tent in an end zone. Halftime talks between coaches and a team also will be held in an end zone, possibly under a tent.
“It’s like youth football games,” Carlynton coach Rich Piccinini said. “Our kids come to practice, get their temperature scanned by a trainer and then know their place on the field where they report every day with their equipment and water.”
Carlynton has 32 players.
“As coaches, we met the day before this started and said to ourselves, ‘ How are we going to do this without a locker room?’ ” Piccinini said. “We’ve all been surprised at how well it has worked out. The kids have been great.”
WPIAL school policies on locker rooms are like a lot of things concerning COVID- 19. In other words, there isn’t much consistency, even from schools that might be located near each other. Besides Carlynton and New Castle, ChartiersHouston, Riverview and Shaler are some of the high schools not allowing any sports teams to use locker rooms.
But Seneca Valley and Belle Vernon are two of the many schools that are allowing football players to use their locker rooms, 25 at a time, to keep within the state’s indoor gathering limits. Ringgold allows 15 players at a time, Montour 12 players at a time with 10 minutes for each group. North Allegheny is using three locker rooms, and players store their helmets and shoulder pads there after practice.
A few schools are using their gym for players to dress because they can practice social distancing. Some schools are still trying to finalize plans for visiting teams on game nights.
Pine- Richland is a WPIAL Class 5A football team that isn’t allowed in its locker room, per school administration orders. And Pine- Richland has a rather fancy locker room, with individual wooden stalls for each player. The players go home after school and come back for a 3: 30 p. m. practice with their football equipment.
“Think of it as an elementary gym class. Everyone goes to their spot on the field, 3 yards apart to be safe, all across the field,” Pine- Richland coach Eric Kasperowicz said.
Pine- Richland used to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches available in the locker room for players before practices. Not anymore. Pine- Richland used to have team meals at the school before home games and then players would go right to the locker room. Not this year.
“When you had two- aday or three- a- day practices before the season, the locker room is where you hung out, maybe even bring an air mattress to nap between practices,” Kasperowicz said. “There are a lot of intangibles with locker rooms you don’t talk about. You might dress next to someone you don’t know really well and build a relationship. It’s where some bonds and trust develop that can even carry over to the field. Now, that’s all out the window.”
Pine- Richland used to have its freshman, junior varsity and varsity football teams all practice on the same field. This season, the teams all practice on different fields and do not come in contact with one another before or after practice. The reason is fear that the whole program would have to shut down for 14 days because of one positive COVID- 19 test.
“It does stink not being in a locker room with everybody,” Pine- Richland quarterback Cole Spencer said. “You come to practice, have your pads in the back of your car, bring them out and get dressed on the track around the field. It is weird.
“Even before practice, usually the music would be going in the locker room. You’re just there with all of your boys. Nothing compares to it. Even before the game is huge in the locker room. I don’t know to explain it, but you’re all kind of getting pumped up. Maybe your buddy helps pull your jersey on. It’s fun. I’m going to miss that.”
Not having the use of a locker room creates some hurdles to clear. But don’t get the idea that coaches and players are ticked off. They’re more disappointed.
“Are kids missing out on something without a locker room? Yeah,” New Castle’s Cowart said. “But at least they’re not missing out on playing football. The common denominator with all of us is, what do we have to do as a team and coaching staff to get things figured out?”