The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Area ADs doing best to navigate COVID-19 challenges
In the world’s continuing struggles with COVID-19 and its variants, local sports fans and players might find solace in a comparison with this winter’s situation and last.
Last year in Connecticut, before vaccines were developed, the season was cut short, teams were confined to their geographic areas and state tournaments were eliminated.
This year, with widespread vaccination and a less lethal version of the virus, high school sports seem back to normal — a full season of play and a return to the Valhalla of state tournaments after a successful campaign. Sorry, it’s an illusion. Close followers of daily local scoreboards are apt to find more postponements than actual scores, regardless of weather conditions. Games that are played sometimes seem topsy-turvy in their outcomes.
And, for many if not all of the area’s high school athletic directors, last year’s nightmare has only grown worse.
“In my 10 years on the job, this one is the hardest of any I’ve had,” said Torrington AD Mike McKenna for an armload of reasons.
“it’s worse this year because there’s a bigger shortage of bus drivers,” said Northwestern AD Fred Williams. “Basketball is a little easier because of the evening hours when regular routes are clear, but middle school programs are decimated because of afternoon hours for their games. (Burlington’s) Har-Bur Middle School isn’t playing any away games.”
Many of the AD problems beyond bus driver shortages, stem from two factors: Omicron’s lower hospitalization/death rate and higher contagion combined with the CIAC’s balancing act between a sincere desire to give kids in every sport the opportunity to play after it was slammed
for what turned out to be appropriate overcaution last year while doing its best with rules attempting to limit Omicron’s spread.
Often, in its thankless tightrope act, the result is confusion and frustration at the local level.
“Everybody’s getting tired,” said Gilbert AD Buck Morgan, who has yet to see a true normal year in his two-year tenure in an already-difficult job.
“Last year, we had strict rules and restrictions from the state. This year, sports aren’t really in the loop,” he said.
“I’m a fan of the CIAC. They’re doing the best job they can,” said Williams while agreeing with others that the balancing act sometimes creates a seeming conflict between fairness and health concerns.
Last year, McKenna points out as a for-instance, the leagues were left to their own devices in creating their own post-season “tournament experiences” and rules.
This year, in the interest of fairness, teams are required to complete as much of their full schedules as possible to be eligible for states.
That rule runs smack into bussing dilemmas and another set of rules regarding quarantines for exposed players.
“Normally, if we have to postpone, we just go to the next available date,” McKenna said. “Now we have to factor in quarantine periods (originally 10 days for close contact with positive cases, shortened to five for unvaccinated players as of last Tuesday), not only for our school but the other team’s.”
In a 20-minute conversation with McKenna, he faced three interruptions for scheduling problems by phone and in person.
“It’s like every day,” he said. “I start at 6:15 in the morning and I’m not done until 10 at night.”
Quarantine rules filter down to the coaches. Terryville AD and boys basketball coach Mark Fowler lost two starters and himself to quarantine rules in a Christmas week tournament.
“I don’t know of a Berkshire League team that hasn’t had players out for quarantines,” said Williams, who also coaches Northwestern’s girls basketball team.
“Thanks to quarantine rules, we don’t have enough players to field a JV team,” said Gilbert’s Morgan, whose girls basketball team roared out to a 6-0 season start, lost two key players to quarantine, then promptly lost its next two games.
“We might get them back next Thursday,” said Yellowjacket coach Gerry Hicks.
“We’ve had some boys basketball players who have been quarantined three times,” said Torrington’s McKenna.
Masks are another strand in the CIAC’s tightrope walk. In most sports, they’re required. In fact, the Berkshire League now mandates a coach on each team to ensure kids are wearing them properly during games.
And yet, wrestlers in a sport requiring the closest contact of any, aren’t required to wear a mask during their matches.
“Masks present a safety issue in wrestling,” said Northwestern’s Williams. “The rationale is that most matches last just six minutes, well within the 15 minutes exposure limit mandated by the Department of Health.”
The result is that wrestling turnout is down at Northwestern and many other schools, undoubtedly influenced by concerned parents, a whole other dimension of an AD’s normal problems exacerbated by sometimes hard-to-understand Omicron rules.
Through it all, the CIAC, along with athletic directors and their coaches stand on the front lines of those who, like last year, just want to give kids a chance to play safely in a world still beset with COVID.
“We just deal with it as it comes,” said Morgan.
“My coaches have been fantastic,” said McKenna. “They hear a new rule and they just say, ‘Okay, let’s do what we can to let the kids play.”
The difference between last year and this?
“Last year, we knew what to expect; this year, we didn’t,” said Williams.