After shutdown, seniors deserve a special event
With more than four decades of high school sports coverage to digest, it’s nearly impossible for me to determine the best game, best team, best player or the best moment in any sport.
But the saddest moments are easier to discern. It’s when seasons come to an end, especially the last season for seniors.
It doesn’t matter whether the end comes in the regular season, district playoffs, PIAA tournament, or after winning the state championship.
I’ve seen rough and tough football players brought to tears and linger on fields on Thanksgiving because they simply don’t want to make that final walk into the locker room or take off their uniform one last time.
I’ve seen basketball and softball players embrace their coaches on their way to team buses and coaches wiping away tears when those embraces ended.
I’ve seen more than my share of medal ceremonies that seemed to last forever because the athletes didn’t want to let go of their coaches.
I’ve seen postgame photo sessions stretch on and on because moms, dads and grandparents wanted every possible shot with every teammate, friend or coach.
I mention all of this because these moments are what make high school different than professional and big-time college sports where money is involved.
High school sports are about the relationships, memories, good times and goodbyes.
Sadly, hundreds of spring sports seniors will
never get to officially say goodbye. They had their goodbyes issued for them when Gov. Tom Wolf declared schools closed for the year and the PIAA followed by saying scholastic sports are shut down with them.
To me, April is the best sports month of the year with the Final Four, baseball starting, the NBA and NHL playoffs, the Masters and the NFL draft.
While everything but the draft has either been postponed or canceled, all of the events we’re missing will happen again next year.
But for the senior spring high school athletes there will be no next year. For a majority of the kids, there will be no more organized sports in their lives.
So, you can imagine their emotions when they looked at their cell phones and computers and got the news Thursday that their careers were done and they’ll have to turn in their uniforms without getting a chance to have a single varsity event this spring.
Even though they knew having the season canceled because of the pandemic was a possibility, the finality of it coming on April 9, 21 days before the nationwide “30 days to stop the spread” was scheduled to end, caught them by surprise.
The athletes and coaches aren’t so self-centered as to not respect the decision or misunderstand their place on the priority list when lives and livelihoods are being lost at a record pace.
Safety is of paramount importance because for most of them, great moments are yet to come.
Still, the loss of something they treasured and worked so hard for over weeks and months is heartbreaking.
For the senior athletes, not only did they lose their final seasons, but they’ve possibly lost out on proms, ceremonies, banquets and many other events they’ve long waited for and may never get back.
It’s not just the athletes who have lost out. It’s the parents who supported their kids in every way possible since they began playing sports who have lost out on one of their proudest moments.
“It’s devastating to the athletes and it’s heartbreaking to parents, too,” said Sheli Polash, the mother of Parkland senior softball player Bella Polash and a former player at Allen and Rider University.
“It’s a right of passage for parents to be able to walk out on the field with their child one last time with all their teammates around them and have that moment with them on a Senior Night. I did it with my parents and I was looking forward to it with my daughter.”
Polash wants to see a special night whether it’s just for Parkland players or the entire softball community to come together and celebrate the careers of the girls who gave us so much to the game and had their careers end unceremoniously.
The softball community has been fortunate to have an allstar event at Patriots Park in early June since the early 1980s. For many years it was known as the Carole Weil Memorial Scholarship Fund All-Star Classic.
Ed Stinner, a longtime area softball coach, was the founder and director of the Weil event and his primary interest was always in saluting the area’s senior players with scholarships and a chance to play the game as a high schooler one last time.
Stinner, like Polash, wants to see something happen this June if the social distancing and other restrictions are relaxed by then.
It’s a big “if,” of course. No one knows where we’ll be in this crisis two months from now. But considering the circumstances, such an event will be well-received and well-attended if they get a go-ahead.
While the Howard Deppe Memorial All-Star Baseball event also has been canceled this year, it would be nice if there could be a local baseball event for the seniors as well.
Local high school baseball should come up with a special night just for retiring Bethlehem Catholic coach Mike Grasso, who is a beloved figure across the baseball landscape.
Lacrosse, track and field, volleyball and tennis should also get their nights of honor whether it is done on a league or district-wide basis.
All of these events would be celebrated by the athletes, coaches and parents if they can be held as a salute and sendoff to kids who didn’t deserve to lose out.
It would take organization, cooperation and commitment on the part of all involved to pull these events off.
In other years, everyone is exhausted when June rolls around and a “let’s just get this over with” attitude becomes all too prevalent when it comes to finishing up the sports year.
But this year is different. Everyone should be energized, refreshed and bursting with ideas to do something special to honor these athletes.
Combine saluting our kids with the heroes on the front line of the coronavirus fight — the doctors, nurses, first responders, grocery store clerks, transit workers etc. — and you could have a night everyone will long remember coming out of a sad period of time we’d all like to forget.