Basketball finals canceled, no word on spring sports
Sixteen schools earned their respective classification’s state title Monday after the Arkansas Activities Association announced that the remainder of the state championship games were being canceled.
“Boys and girls teams who qualified for the finals in class 3A, 4A, 5A, and 6A will all be named 2020 State Basketball Champions,” a news release said. “Plans are being developed to honor and formally recognize the students and teams who qualified in these championship games. … As we navigate through these difficult times we need to remember the lessons that interscholastic activities have taught us: cooperation, patience, sacrifice, responsibility, respect and being a team player. The AAA Board of Directors and staff will provide more information on all spring activities at a later date.”
The decision came roughly two hours after Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced that there would be no further on-site instruction at public schools for the remainder of the academic year.
“The governor’s doing the right thing for our state, for our people and for our kids,” said Lakeside athletic director Don Pierce. “The AAA is gonna follow suit, I’m sure. If you’re not having school, we’re not wanting kids to get together, then we sure can’t continue to do athletics or come back and do athletics, have sporting events. The governor did the right thing, and I know the AAA will as well.”
“The AAA are putting everybody’s safety first, which I totally agree with,” noted Hot Springs athletic director Rodney Echols. “They’ve deemed the next two weeks the most important weeks of social distancing and possibly staying at home.
“It’s just unfortunate right now, going through a tough time, and the coronavirus is not cooperating with us. And for the most part, we hate it for our student-athletes, not being able to participate. I’m sitting
at home missing sports like none other. I’ve been around it all my life, and to have it taken away for a long period of time, including on TV, it’s very, very gut-wrenching at the moment. So I can just imagine how our kids feel and hopefully we can get back to this as soon as we can.”
Mountain Pine athletic director James Galarza said that this is a new situation that all athletes, coaches and administrators are facing.
“I really feel bad for not only our seniors, but every senior out there and every school district just like at the college level, high school level, whatnot,” he said. “It’s a new challenge that we all face. While athletics is my primary concern in my position, all the superintendents and principals and staff at schools, none of us have really faced anything like this.”
While Cutter Morning Star athletic director T.C. Shamel agreed, he said that coaches will have to “be creative and come up with some ways” to interact with the athletes.
“Technology is going to be crucial right now to stay in contact with our athletes and just have them doing something, staying active,” he said. “Some of them don’t have access to weights and that kind of thing. You can do push-ups, you can do all that other stuff you can do, but now you’ve got to be self-motivated. You’ve got to get out there and really do some things and push yourself to where you haven’t had to in the past. You rely on your coaches and your facilities and all that so much; now we’ve got to monitor and adjust that a little bit. It’s going to be a mess.”
The anticipated decision will affect more than just the spring sports and athletes that participate in them.
“If we had a crystal ball, it’d be different, but we don’t,” explained Fountain Lake athletic director Marc Davis. “We don’t know what it’s gonna look like in two weeks, six weeks, 12 weeks, three months. We don’t know. If we did know, it’d be different, but there’s just a lot of things that have to be covered.”
Jessieville athletic director Jamie Saveall said that the governor’s proclamation will also affect the annual physicals that districts host.
“It’s gonna be really interesting on how we’re able to proceed with that,” he said.
“We do school-wide physicals for all of our athletes — [grades] six to 11 this year but will be our [grade] seven to 12 athletes for next year, and we always schedule that. As far as paperwork and things like that, it’s a lot easier for us to just do a mass one. Plus, it’s a lot cheaper for kids than having to go to their [primary care physicians].”
With schools closed to students through the remainder of the year, summer activities, including basketball and football team camps, could also be affected.
“As soon as school lets out, that’s when these teams start their team football camps, 7-on-7,” Shamel explained. “I mean, it’s immediately, not to mention team basketball camps. They’re going early in June and all that, so I mean, what’s next? As a head football coach, I think it’s coming. I hope it’s not. And that’s going to be huge, man. Not that everything else isn’t, but it’s going to be a mess.”
“You look at the U of A. They’ve already canceled their summer camps and so forth, just because right at this point, you don’t know,” Pierce agreed. “This is when kids are registering for the camps, and you don’t want to get caught up in all that taking money, and then have to reimburse it. Again, it’s just that unknown right now. When’s this thing gonna take the downhill and how far downhill do we have to get before we say, ‘OK, we’re gonna start letting people get back together?’”
While the athletes and coaches are most affected, a decision that extends beyond the academic year will affect more than the athletes and the coaches.
“You’re talking about officials, your chain gangs, all those little things,” Davis said. “I’m not even talking about people in the seats, and that’s gonna be an issue. … We’ll just have to wait and see how this runs its course and leave it in God’s hands. He knows what’s best for everything, so we’ll just wait and see what he has in store for us.”
The most difficult thing for the athletic directors is how the athletes, especially this year’s seniors, will be affected.
“Overall, I think the seniors do not like it, obviously,” Galarza said. “I mean, everybody would like to finish their senior season with a bang, so to speak, but a few of the seniors I’ve talked to are disappointed, but they understand. This will go down, I’m sure, as one of the things in their memory that they were not able to finish out and the trials and tribulations of this time period for them to finish up.”
“I always told told my players when I was coaching, ‘At the end of the year, there’s only one team that’s not crying, and those are the state champions.’ I always told them, I want to be that one,” Saveall said. “This year, unfortunately, everybody is in that boat, and that’s the tough thing. … They love the sport that they play, and to not ever be able to go out, for the majority of our kids, they’re never gonna have that opportunity again. And that’s unfortunate.
“But I think kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit. I think they see the big picture, too. And I think that they see that by sacrificing their senior year, they could possibly be savings some lives. That’s real important that we don’t second-guess those kids because they are sharp. They know what’s going on, and they know the severity of everything in our nation, state and [what] everybody’s dealing with.”