The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Lorain moving forward with conference in limbo
The Lorain Titans football team is fullgo for Aug. 1.
First-year head coach James Boyeas and his team are slated to hit the field on the first day of official practice despite other schools in the Lake Erie League suspending athletics.
In addition to Lorain, the LEL consists of seven other schools that reside in Cuyahoga County. They include: Bedford, Cleveland Heights, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Shaker Heights, Shaw and Warrensville Heights.
Garfield Heights and Shaker Heights announced July 31 that they would be suspending athletics after the Cuyahoga County Board of Health recommended July 30 that athletics shouldn’t be played while schools are in a period of remote learning. Cleveland.com is reporting that Bedford and Warrensville Heights are also not planning on practicing Aug. 1.
Lorain is the only school in the conference that resides outside of Cuyahoga County. Numerous other Cuyahoga County schools outside of the LEL announced that they were suspending athletics July 31.
While there will be plenty of speculation, nothing is known at this time how this will affect the Titans.
“As of right now, are we practicing tomorrow? Yes. Do I know what’s going to happen on Monday? No,” said Lorain athletic director Bryan Koury. “Unfortunately, that’s all I can tell you. Our kids are going to practice tomorrow, they are going to practice on Monday and Tuesday and we will see how things unfold. I wish I knew more.”
The common theme among athletic directors across the state is that there are a lot of unknowns as the situation continues to develop.
“As of right now, the conversations that I’ve had with various other athletic directors of schools that we compete against ... whether (they are in) Cuyahoga County or Lorain County, everyone is saying the same thing,” said Koury. “There is a lot of uncertainty. I wish I had more and I wish I could give you more.”
The OHSAA Board of Directors reiterated their position July 31 that the fall sports seasons will go on as planned. Girls tennis, girls and boys golf, field hockey, girls and boys soccer, girls and boys cross country, volleyball and football will officially begin practice Aug. 1.
Koury said while he could try to assume what is going to happen in the future, it’s fruitless as things are changing by the minute.
“I could guess, without knowing, I could guess what may happen over the course of the next day, two days, a week from now and literally 15 minutes from now have that all totally change,” Koury said. “That’s just how much of a whirlwind we’ve been in with this whole situation.”
Surrounded by uncertainty, Boyeas, his staff and his team will be hard at work Aug. 1. The only difference being that the Titans won’t be able to scrimmage any other teams. That’s because the OHSAA informed schools July 28 that all school vs. school scrimmages in contact sports were suspended.
“Our current plan is that we are going to continue with our practices as if we were preparing to play Week 1,” Boyeas said. “The only difference in what we’re going to be doing is we’re not going to have the opportunity to scrimmage any other teams. So our
thought process is going to be to scrimmage ourselves.
“In doing that, our message to the kids is going to be that we are going to do everything that we can as often as we can.
“We’re also going to be compliant and continue to follow all the safety protocols that are in place, which we’ve been doing since June 15. Knock on wood, we haven’t had any health issues at all.”