Despite unknowns, MIL football coaches excited to get things going again
A season like no other resumes for the Maui Interscholastic League football ranks today.
Numerous unknowns go along with the enthusiasm of getting back to practice for the first time since Aug. 4.
That was the day that the state Department of Education announced its decision that athletics would be halted for six weeks to allow for all players, coaches and volunteers to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or have an approved exemption for religious or medical reasons in order to participate.
Lahainaluna High School comes into the season as a Division I member after winning the last four state Division II titles and the year off in 2020 when there was no season due to the pandemic.
The Lunas held an organizational meeting on Friday and 45 players showed up to turn in their vaccination cards. Co-head coach Dean Rickard expects about 10 more players to do so today.
“We called the meeting to kind of get an indication as to which kids completed the vaccination, which kids were going to claim exemptions and 45 of the kids had completed their vaccinations, but that’s a combined all classes,” Rickard said on Sunday. “About 25 percent were varsity players, a lot of the sophomores and freshmen were the ones that are vaccinated.”
The question of whether there will be junior varsity play in the MIL this football season is on the minds of the Lunas, as it is for the rest of their MIL brethren.
“A lot of our seniors didn’t turn in their cards yet. And it’s still an unknown. Monday’s for sure the day that we’ll see where we stand and where we’re going to move forward from there,” Rickard said. “If we even think about combining the two teams to make just the varsity team or we still going to have two teams, JV and vars.
“I’ve been talking to some of the other coaches and I think we’re all in the same boat.”
Rickard added that the entire team is excited to get going.
“A lot of them have been taking it upon themselves to do their conditioning, lifting weights, so that’s a good sign,” he said. “I mean we’ve been out six weeks now, going on seven. A lot of them decided to stay ready, the leaders on our team decided to stay in condition on their own, so we’re excited about that.”
Maui High is one team that expects to have a roster size similar to the Lunas and also must make the decision whether or not to have a JV team. At least one other MIL team — Kamehameha Maui — opted out of JV before the break.
“At this point, it’s just nice to have a season,” Sabers head coach Robert Dougherty said Thursday when the revised MIL schedule — which includes six games per team — was released. “This will be running into other seasons, other sports and I think that’s probably where that came from. Of course, you want to play more games, but it’s a different year and getting on the field is going to be great for those kids, whether it be six games, 10 games. You know, at least we’re playing.”
The Sabers and Lunas open the MIL season on Oct. 22 at Sue Cooley Stadium.
“They are a very good team and we’re looking forward to the challenge,” Dougherty said.
“We’ve got to play them sooner or later, so it might as well be the first one out of the gate.”
Baldwin coach Pohai Lee said that with the layoff it will be important to work players into shape cautiously.
“Our focus right now is getting back into it, getting guys in shape and competitive,” Lee said. “I think we did it right the first time around, where we’re just kind of easing things in gradually and we’re all hoping that they did some kind of conditioning on their own, but you know how that goes.
“That’s kind of what we’re looking at and we’ll see from there.”
■
Robert Collias is at rcollias @mauinews.com