Teams adjust under COVID-19 guidelines
Athletes work to keep their distance amid limited space
Coach Jessica Stephens stood on Hardin Valley’s track, her soccer players finishing up their summer workout on the track.
On the turf field, Hardin Valley’s football team lined up across yard lines so they could begin stretching.
And on the far end zone, the cross country team was finishing up workouts.
All the athletes tried to maintain the 6 feet of separation from one another, but they were running out of space.
“We’ve got 900 people here and we’ve got to keep you all socially distanced,” Stephens yelled out to her team.
There weren’t 900 people. But it was over 100. Every summer at Hardin Valley, the coaches have to coordinate who will be on the football field that is also the soccer field, who will use the track and who will use the one weight room.
But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were given guidelines that include small groups and social distancing.
How do you organize workouts and the use of athletic facilities when space and group numbers are limited?
“It’s just one of those deals where we’re trying to keep a running calendar on who needs (the weight room) and when. How long?” said Oakland football coach Kevin Creasy. “And we’re trying to make sure our supplies are built up so everybody does a good job of leaving it as clean as they found it.”
Coaches and athletic directors are in constant communication in group texts or email chains so everyone knows who is using the weight room, the football field or the track.
“Our athletic director Casshawndra Sain does a good job with a calendar,” said Brent Mcneal, who is Jackson South Side’s girls basketball coach and football offensive coordinator. “We try to do a good job balancing out each other’s time.
“We do football early, and then I will bring the basketball players in right after that, so that I don’t have a big, long delay.”
On Monday, Mcneal had two shifts of football workouts, from 8-10 a.m. and then from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Then the girls basketball team arrived at 1 p.m. to do workouts.
At Hardin Valley on Monday, the girls soccer team was scheduled to work out from 7:30-8:45 a.m., one group in the weight room and the other group on the field. The cross country team arrived at 8 a.m. There were two groups of football players scheduled for workouts — 9-10:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.-noon.
“We’ve met a couple times and we sit there and brainstormed how we can break it out,” said Hardin Valley football coach Mike Potter. “And then it’s just a matter of how many stations you have and dividing the number of kids into those stations equally.”
Contributing: Michael Odom and Tom Kreager.