The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Lorain golf and C.C. able to compete
It’s been a rocky few weeks for student athletes at Lorain High School.
After finding out fall contact sports seasons were canceled Aug. 10, non-contact sports athletes were left wondering if their sports were next.
Fortunately, that isn’t the case as the Lorain boys golf team and the boys and girls cross country teams are able to compete this fall. The teams went through a period of uncertainty before ultimately getting the green light to compete.
“We had a pause where we just restarted a week ago so they just got back,” said Lorain athletic director Bryan Koury. “The kids and coaches were excited to get back. It’s going to take a little bit of time to get back to where they were prior to the brief hiatus that they had. However, they are excited about the fact that they’ll have the opportunity to be able to compete this fall.”
The same can’t be said for the Titans’ football, boys and girls soccer and volleyball teams as Lorain City Schools CEO Jeff Graham shut down fall contact sports earlier this month.
“All of the information that we’ve been provided from medical experts said that the contact sports were unsafe,” Koury said. “Everything we’ve read, from the state all the way down to the county, said that contact sports is not considered safe.
“Whereas those sports that there is no contact, whether it be between team members or competition against opposing team members, if there’s no contact then there’s no ability to be able to contract the virus.”
Ideally, Koury would like to see all of the Lorain athletic teams on the field. However, he emphasized the safety of student athletes as paramount during these uncertain times.
“We want to be able to provide as many extracurricular activities as we can,” Koury said. “We also want to be as safe as possible. All of the information that we’ve been provided has pointed toward the fact that for the contact sports, you may be able to put protocols in place to make it ‘safer’ ... we don’t really know exactly what that means in terms of ‘safer.’ What degree of safety is ‘safer’?
“We haven’t really seen a health matrix that has provided that information. All of the information that we have been provided by medical experts has been that contact sports is not safe and doing so against opposing schools makes the tracing of the virus extremely difficult. Especially when you are playing potentially multiple schools in a given week.”
Lorain football coach James Boyeas told The Morning Journal he is hoping his Titans get back on the football field for team-related activities. Koury and his staff
are working on such a plan for contact sports teams.
“We’re working on creating a format that would hopefully allow for us to be able to have activities, Koury said. “Those activities, regardless of the sport, wouldn’t (include) the physical contact that would traditionally be involved. That way, we can ensure 100 percent safety.”
Despite not being able to play this fall, Boyeas and the Titans are keeping their options open and aren’t losing hope for a potential spring season. When it comes to
the possibility of playing in the spring, Koury is taking a wait-and-see approach.
“Until there are enough schools that have opted to not play in the fall, there isn’t much that we can do moving forward,” Koury said. “There is the potential and I would say that there is the potential for anything. As of right now, there are so many unknowns. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, better less a week from now, better less four or five months from now. So we’ll see how it all plays out.”