Why severe weather did not derail state championship games
Facing a delay he knew would last longer than an hour, Tuttle coach Brad Ballard wanted to keep his players off their feet and focused. So, he told them to lie down on the floor.
Adrenaline had been high in pregame. Nerves had built. Then a lightning bolt flashed through the Yukon sky.
“It was everything that you don’t want the game to be when you start as a coach,” Ballard said while laughing Saturday morning. “You work all year long, you want the kids to enjoy that pomp and circumstance of a state championship game and then you end up going to the locker room three times in 30 minutes.
“It was a mess. Nothing you can do about that.”
On a night where dreams are realized, nothing was smooth as severe weather wrecked a night full of high school football state championships and semifinals.
Nearly every game was delayed at least once if not twice. Some had three delays.
The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association drew the ire of fans, players and coaches across the state for not postponing the games based on the forecast. But the OSSAA made the decision early Friday after careful planning to continue.
OSSAA associate director Mike Whaley declined to comment, but he was in constant contact with the National Weather Service in Norman and Tulsa throughout the day and night. Each stadium had an emergency plan ready if weather hit.
But it didn’t make it easier.
Tuttle and Bethany fans were cleared from Yukon High School’s stadium three times. At Edmond Santa Fe, fans were sent under the bleachers twice.
In Owasso, Stillwater fans took shelter late in the fourth quarter inside Owasso’s new indoor facility. Stillwater players ate their postgame meal early during the long delay.
But Stillwater coach Tucker Barnard never complained.
“For me, I was glad the way the OSSAA handled it in the sense there wasn’t really a question that would happen,” he said. “Obviously, we had the forecast and knew stuff would move through. They told us early once we start we’re committed to playing. I think that helped a lot.”
But to some, postponing a day would have been fine.
“That wouldn’t have been a big deal,” Ballard said. “I think they were bound and determined they were going to play those things on Friday night. No matter what the forecast was they were going to do it.”