Football is just too risky

Maybe this makes me a subversive, card-carrying communist, but I don’t feel good at all about high school football being played in Connecticut this fall.

Maybe this makes me one of those unpatriotic alarmists who believed in March that COVID-19 was more than a passing sniffle. And still makes me one of those unpatriotic alarmists after 4.4 million of us have been infected and 150,000 of us have died.

Maybe I’m wrong in thinking that a dose of Friday Night Lights and a couple of shots of hydroxychloroquine won’t cure all that ails us.

But, hey, that’s me. Maybe I care about your kids more than some of you care about mine.

Right there in the second paragraph of the 11-page CIAC fall plan delaying the start of sports until Sept. 24 yet announcing a blueprint for an eight-game football season, there is a bold-face disclaimer: “The CIAC emphasizes that this plan is fluid and in a perpetual state of evaluation.”

In talking to CIAC executive director Glenn Lungarini on Friday, he made it clear a sudden change in COVID health metrics could change everything on a moment’s notice. So

call it the Great Proviso.

The CIAC has put in a great deal of thought and collaborated with state education, health, and medical officials. Everyone wants — or should want — high school kids to have the opportunity to play sports. From skill development to teamwork and leadership, sports are a vital part of the growing experience. To deny kids that chance is a sad matter, indeed.

The CIAC played this right in March when, in the face of some strong, kneejerk criticism, it proactively canceled winter sports tournaments. The CIAC played it well again in extending the possibility of spring sports, keeping hope alive as long as it could before cancellation.

Football, though, it gnaws at me. There are too many possibilities for things to go wrong to call it anything but a public health risk. Penn’s Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of Gov. Lamont’s advisors, recommended Thursday against high school contact sports this fall. Lamont said Friday he hoped the CIAC “takes that to heart.”

A dual cross country meet with a staggered start against a high school from an adjoining town? I’ll sign on for that 100 percent.

But the biggest schools in the state practicing and playing through the autumn, exchanging hits, exchanging spit and sweat, changing in locker rooms, lifting weights, socializing after games, more fans than anticipated magically finding their ways into games? Even with protocols listed on the CIAC plan, I see too many chances for COVID-19 to spread, too many chances for lapses.

If the kids aren’t in school, there is no sports. What about a hybrid model where there is both inschool and distance learning? Lungarini said, yes, the CIAC views the hybrid model as being in school.

There is no mandatory CIAC testing up front. There is self-screening. If kids exhibit symptoms, they’re self-isolated and contacting their primary care physician. If an athlete tests positive for COVID, it must be reported to the school administration and local DPH and they are quarantined.

Lungarini said there is no special waiver beyond what kids ordinarily would sign, although individual districts may choose to add some language in handbooks or permission forms. Each school is going to have a COVID advisory committee. I’m sorry. I still smell parents who are raging this week for “My Johnny to play” launching a lawsuit next month if he gets COVID.

Cross country, swimming, and golf are listed as low risk sports by the National Federation of State High School Associations. Two already are CIAC fall sports and golf should be. As long as COVID-19 cases in Connecticut remain low and the competition zone is kept to a tight geographical area, I say run on, swim on …

Volleyball, field hockey, and soccer are considered moderate risk. Again, I am not a 100 or nothing rock head. The elaborate bubble system in professional sports obviously is costprohibitive for high schools. It also works. On the other hand, within a week of starting major league baseball, insisting on traveling, already has been rocked by COVID-19.

So you analyze the science and play the best odds possible. Taking into consideration how often there is a physical contact, the equipment and balls, and, yes, the mental health of the kids who have endured so much in recent months, there has to be some smart risk vs. reward on volleyball, field hockey, and soccer. I think a strong argument can be made for playing. Little matters like the CIAC having players stay on the same side of the net in volleyball shows folks are thinking.

The CIAC, in fact, had detailed conversations and decided to recategorize basketball from moderate to high risk alongside wrestling and lacrosse.

“We also considered since June 20, sports have been played around Connecticut,” Lungarini said. “Right now, you can see hockey, lacrosse, soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, passingleague football, tennis, road race, track. You’re talking club and AAU, high intensity games, running up and down the floor, sweating and breathing on each other in an indoor setting and the health metrics in Connecticut are the best in the country while all this is going on. That gives optimism and at least for now, as we release this plan, don’t suggest we alter any of our offerings in the fall.

“That being said you wake up this morning and you see there is a spike in Rhode Island,” Lungarini said. “You see (age group) 10-to-19 rise in Greenwich, granted not a big rise. It’s that detailed every single day for us. If the metrics reach a point where it’s not safe to play a sport or not safe to play all sports, as we demonstrated March 10, we will shut it down over night.”

Call me Comrade Softy, but I still believe football is too big a risk this fall.

I don’t want this to come off wrong, but I trust girls field hockey teams to be self-reliant on socially distancing, wearing masks when necessary and adhering to CIAC rules of hygiene. High school football players? Meh.

We’d also be lying if we said football isn’t part of the social fabric of America. That cannot be dismissed. New Jersey has had a COVID-19 spike and it has pointed directly to indoor parties, one involving Rutgers football players. Greenwich’s

small surge last week showed 23 of the 44 positive cases involved those ages 11 to 20. It pointed to parties in town and some Greenwich High football players were quarantined, reportedly after one tested positive for COVID. The percentage of younger people with coronavirus is on the rise and it’s not only in the hotspots across the South.

So where we going after the game?

“Don’t go hangout with non-football kids,” Stafford co-op coach Brian Mazzone told Hearst Connecticut. “Don’t be going to a party and don’t be doing stuff with kids you don’t know.

“We are very strict about (social distancing). We have three sets of brothers on the team. When they’re here they have to be distanced.”

Lungarini said he wouldn’t limit that talk to football.

“I’d categorize it to the social nature of kids,” he said. “You listen to them talk about the anxiety and stress of losing Senior Night and playing for that championship, but also graduation and senior class trip and ring dance. The best message I can give the kids is it is your hands right now. You have to be smart.”

A six-game football season with an opportunity to play two more games in a “tournament experience?” A 12-game season in the other sports with two more added? Lungarini admitted the CIAC doesn’t know what the “tournament experience” will look like yet.

Platt-Meriden football coach Jason Bruenn, meanwhile, was worried about the front of the season. He would have wanted one more week of contact in practice before the start of the season, contact avoided because of COVID.

“Lifting weight is one thing, playing football is another monster,” Bruenn said.

“I just don’t want to see someone get hurt or a team be so unprepared.”

There are economic aspects, too. Well-heeled towns can make sure there is plenty of transportation to take kids a few at a time to a nearby road game. They can help with any protocols and come up with, say, splash guards on helmets.

There are places that struggle, too. Lungarini said it was made clear to coaches and athletic directors to be understanding some kids might have trouble getting to school for practice on distance-learning days.

“We have to stress this is a fluid plan,” Lungarini said. “You try to cover all your bases in committee, but at some point you have to release it to the entire state and have discussion in order to make adjustments. Yes, there is some equity divide. And we can’t forget about the kid who can’t afford something or doesn’t have transportation.”

I’m a sports writer. I’d love to see high school football. I love your kids more.