Strike One: Let’s all remember right off the top that there never was and never has been any sort of “blueprint” for people or organizations to look back on to see how to handle a world-wide pandemic. We’ve all been flying blind since March, and that includes the Colorado High School Activities Association, the Governor’s office and everyone else hit hard by the stoppage of high school sports.
Bashing CHSAA has become a popular sport in leu of being able to get out on the playing field since last spring. “They should have done this,” and “They should have done that,” have made second guessers of us all. And that’s not something we’ll look back at and be real proud of.
Do I wish CHSAA had come up with a way to save my high school baseball season last spring? Sure I do. So do they. Do I blame them for not being able to? Nope. Again, there was no way to be close to prepared for anything like impact of COVID-19 (unless you were in the government and had two months of advanced warning. The rest of us didn’t.)
After having a full summer to work on it while dealing with all the “what ifs” and unknowns, the plan CHSAA came up with – which included a whole lot of input from state government officials – still didn’t come close to pleasing everyone. Even though it guaranteed every high school athlete would have a competitive season (unlike last spring) the number of people who whined and complained about not having things exactly as they’d been in the past was staggering. Seems when it comes to high school sports, everyone wants to have their cake and to eat it too…even while we remain in the middle of the pandemic.
The plan was doable. Four seasons, with football, volleyball and boys’ soccer moving to the early spring (and baseball and track being pushed back seven weeks.) But many still bitched and moaned.
Even after the 10-person CHSAA Board of Directors voted two weeks ago to stick to their plan, the amount of complaining became so overwhelming that they relented, and are allowing schools to choose for themselves whether or not to play football this fall, or wait until next spring. Early returns make it look like there will be roughly a 75-25 split, with the majority of schools and leagues taking the chance to play in the fall, albeit having a shortened schedule, and in some cases, a long way to travel to play in a sort of bubble environment. Other schools are content to wait it out and play football in the spring. So it figures to be…messy.
Soccer will remain in early spring largely because the powerful “club” soccer programs already moved their operations from spring to fall to accommodate CHSAA’s move the other direction. Everyone involved with soccer seems to be okay with this arrangement. Nice to see that kind of cooperation to benefit the kids.
Yet we will still have a split football season (with no legit post season of course.) The concern is that if there’s a flare up or new surge in Coronavirus cases that’s large enough to shut things down again (and flu season is approaching) those teams (and players) who opted for a fall season will be out of luck. There will be no moving postponed games to the spring. Each school will have to live with their choice of seasons.
We have to hope for the sake of the players and coaches involved that they can get two months of games in, largely to please the adults. It’d be a tragedy to have football players miss out on playing their senior seasons because adults weren’t flexible enough to allow for a single season to be pushed back over legitimate safety concerns.
Strike Two: Of course the continual fussing and complaining about whether or not to play football in the fall has been even louder and more intense at the college level. The Mountain West, Pac 12, Big 10 and others voted to postpone football this fall and explore options for playing some games next spring. Despite large outbreaks of COVID-19 cases on college campuses, there were still many conferences, like the SEC (shocker!) that moved forward with fall plan with little or no alterations, other than pushing back start days and limiting crowd sizes.
The amazing part of all this is that even after large COVID outbreaks at several schools like Alabama (more than 2,300 positive cases since classes began August 19th) Notre Dame (almost 700 cases on campus since the beginning of August) North Carolina (more than 1,000 positive cases since February, including more than 300 cases in nine residence halls since the fall semester started) and others, many programs appear to be willing to “play through it.”
There have been more than a dozen games already cancelled due to COVID and the weather has not turned cold yet. The University of Houston has had its first three games all cancelled by opponents who had virus issues within their programs. Most programs are taking appropriate safety precautions, including rapid testing and contact tracing, which is leading to discoveries that warrant the cancellations.
But more astounding is the callousness of some other programs, who despite outbreaks on their rosters will not miss a snap. A great number of power five teams, almost half according to ESPN, won’t even reveal the number of positive tests they’ve had, including 10 of the 14 schools in the football mad SEC.
At Texas Tech, they’ve had 75 players test positive since mid-summer, including 12 that are still being held out of action. They never paused football activities, and played anyway, winning their season opener over Houston Baptist. Go team!
At LSU, Head Coach Ed Orgeron was frank about his team’s health while the defending National Champions made sure they don’t miss any game action this fall.
“Not all of our players, but most of our players have caught it,” Orgeron told the media last week. “I think that hopefully they won’t catch it again, and hopefully they’re not out for games.”
Priorities, right?
Strike Three: Two of the more strikingly different responses to the postponement – and subsequent reinstatement – of college football this fall has come from the fan bases of neighboring states/unfriendly rivals Nebraska and Colorado. The longtime conference rivals split up a decade ago now, and neither has had very much on-field success since. But one thing has not changed: Husker fans fervor for their football program. If you didn’t realize football was almost a matter of life and death in Nebraska, you should it now. Football means more than life itself to far too many in Nebraska. Under normal circumstances, this kind of passionate support for the program is admirable. Under the current anything-but-normal circumstances, it borders on embarrassing.
When the news first broke in August that the Big 10 conference was going to postpone it’s 2020 fall football slate, the majority of the conference members were calm, and had appropriate and measured responses. Nebraska coach Scott Frost disagreed with the decision, and as is his right, said so. Also in an appropriate manner, he expressed his displeasure with the conference’s decision via the media. That really should have been the end of the matter, at least for the time being.
But others around the program, including parents, fans, some media people and even the state Attorney General, went into uproar mode. There were demands made and lawsuits threatened. When those around the Ohio State program, including Head Coach Ryan Day, joined the chorus, the movement to resume the fall football season picked up steam and the conference eventually relented. The Big 10 will start their abbreviated football season in late October.
So in one way, Nebraska won. Frost certainly comes out of this with a favorable review from many, including potential recruits…and his fan base remains in love with him despite two consecutive losing seasons. But there’s no way to look at the reaction of the fan base without shaking your head. Priorities, remember?
The state of Nebraska hasn’t been immune to COVID, nor are they even on the decline. The New York Times tracking says cases have increased by more than 30% over the past two weeks. Almost 41,000 cases overall and nearly 500 deaths. But…football!
Meanwhile in Colorado, where CU football has a far less rabid following, they’ve been able to keep their collective heads on straight about the Pac 12’s decision to postpone the fall season. The “uproar” has been virtually non-existent. A welcome calm during the COVID storm. CU fans seem to understand far better than their Big Red counterparts that the postponement of a single season isn’t the end of the world, or even the end of their beloved college football. It could actually be a positive step in the eradication of this disease. Life should, after all, be the ultimate priority, right? (Note: To be totally fair, we’d probably have to see how Colorado football fans would have responded to the postponement of the NFL/Denver Broncos season, right?)
Ironically, on the field, both CU and Nebraska would probably benefit from not having a 2020 season at all. Both rosters could use the bolstering of another full recruiting class. Buffs new head coach Karl Dorrell would be given some much needed time to get his feet under him in Boulder after getting the gig less than a month prior to the shutdown. But after the Big 10 did a reverse, the Pac 12 will too, and the Buffs will be playing football again, probably in November.
And while they got their team and their game back, Nebraska also lost. Their first three games via the conference’s revised schedule includes an opener at Ohio State and a match up with Penn State as well. A bit of revenge from the conference office?