LaSalle Institute Athletic Director Ward discusses pandemic
TROY, NY » For LaSalle Institute, the fall did not usher in the coming of soccer or other sports and with the winter continuing postponements, it looks like athletes will need to continue to wait.
“I try and communicate with my coaches as much as possible. I think at the beginning of this it was much more frequent than it is now,” said LSI Athletic Director CraigWard. “I try not to overwhelm them and it is a lot of the same thing we are getting from the state in terms of things being pushed back.”
LaSalle competes in the Colonial Council alongside Lansingburgh, Catholic Central, and Watervliet. The Colonial decided to push all high risk fall sports to the “Fall II” season, which is set to begin on March 1. The New York State Public High School Athletic Association has yet to announce any sort of plan since announcing
the start of the winter will be pushed from its original January 4 date.
“We are taking it day by day, week by week,” said Ward. “We have right now, at our school, the only things going on are bowling and swimming. Indoor track was ready to go, but then that got pushed back with the lack of facilities and now we are just waiting on basketball, hockey, and wrestling.”
Student- athletes are not alone in the frustration of the recent delays and cancellations of highrisk sports. Athletic Directors, likeWard, and coaches share in that feeling and hope to get back to action as soon as the state and CDC deem it okay to do so.
“Everyone wants the kids to play, especially the kids themselves,” said Ward. “So it is frustrating that this is where we are but at the same time there is not a lot that any of us can do because it is a decision that is out of our hands.”
Ward continued to share his thoughts through the process of winter postponements and how coaches and players have reached.
“When we first got to December 14, back then we decided to go,” said Ward. “We set safety rules like no sharing of equipment, stuff like that, we had that going on for a while. When cases started to spike in the area we decided to pull back on that a little bit because our school administration’s main goal is to keep the doors open. No one is doing anything right now, except for the bowlers and swimmers.”
LaSalle Basketball Head Coach Greg Davis was set to begin his first season at the helm of the Cadets but will have to wait, hopefully, just a little bit longer to see what his team has in person.
Davis was hired as the head coach back in May after finding success at Troy High.
“Evenwhenwe hired him we never met face to face in the same room. It was all over phone calls, zoom meetings, and zoom interviews and stuff like that. The first time I got to meet Greg face to face was this summer at our open golf tournament,” said Ward. “He is really anxious to get after it, especially with this team he is supposed to have, it’s a senior heavy team.”
Coinciding with the coronavirus pandemic was the announcement that LaSalle will begin to accept girls in the fall for the first time since its inception in 1850. Ward is now tasked with establishing an athletic program for the incoming girls accepted to the school.
“It’s been great. This is a whole new world for LaSalle and myself. We are opening the doors to female students. It’s been great,” said Ward. “We are going through the process of gauging interest of the girls and the families who are contacting us and the admissions office. We are gauging their interest in sports they play and sports they would be interested in playing when they come next year.”
There is no certainty of what sports LaSalle will offer girls just yet and there is no hiring of coaches just yet. Ward has a good feeling on what sports LaSalle will offer the incoming girls in 2021, but is waiting to see if things change.
“We are waiting to see what we have from the interest of the girls that have enrolled and then we will form teams based off of that,” saidWard. “We aren’t necessarily ahead in some sports. [Soccer and Softball] are the sports that we would like to have, but at the same time those are the sports that require a larger amount of girls. We are going to need 15 high school girls for a soccer team. We are not making any decisions on that yet, we are just going to wait and see what girls we have enrolled and see what we have from there.”
Title IX will be something LaSalle will need to consider down the road but will not be an immediate concern. As long as LaSalle is offering something at the beginning and then the numbers even out that will be when we need to match the teams, per se.
Ward, a 2008 graduate of LaSalle, is still fairly green to the Athletic Director position at LaSalle, but has some longtime coaches likeTimFlanigan and John Leonard to help him guide through uncharted waters.
“Coach Flanigan was my coach when I graduated in 2008 so I have a great relationship with him. He’s handling it extremely well. He had his golf season in the fall so he got to do that. He’s in my office everyday asking questions and looking for updates,” saidWard. “He andCoach Leonard are awesome with these kids, they’ve been doing it for so long. They know how to handle all the different kids and handle their emotions and stuff like that. They have been excellent through this time.”
Ward is still learning everyday thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the biggest thing that has become apparent to him through it all is to not taking anything for granted and to appreciate the opportunity as it comes to you.
“Sports and athletics that a lot of kids at this school and a lot of kids that came before them were a huge part of their experience here at LaSalle and as we found out, it can be taken away from you in an instant,” said Ward. “This last nine months has been tough. It’s been tough for coaches, students, parents, teachers, you name it. The big thing is to not take anything for granted. It can be gone in an instant.”