If he had come to the city of Parker on Friday night, about 40 miles southwest of Sioux Falls, he probably wouldn’t have known there was a pandemic going on.
But you would have met him in the football season.
Aside from the mask worn by coaches and referees and a loudspeaker public service announcement, the opening night of South Dakota’s precarious readiness crusade began with the fanfare he’s been waiting for, with hometown pheasants taking Arlington/Lake Preston as the top popular. Ticket. in the city.
However, as in similar sites throughout the state, there is an appreciation for anything that can be removed at any time.
No human tunnel awaited the fans, and Parker paid his elders three times before the game, a rite reserved for the last game of the season, but driven to the first game to make sure popularity took place.
“I’m cautiously positive,” said Superintendent Parker and athletic director Donovan DeBoer, who masked himself on the sidelines. “I think we’ll get ahead through this. I don’t know we’re going to play all eight games, but I’m sure the South Dakota State Championships will be played.”
Given what’s happening across the country, with school and major school leagues getting darker amid COVID-19 considerations, that would be an achievement. South Dakota reported that 193 cases showed Friday, the third-highest number in a day since the pandemic began. Several of the games scheduled for Friday have been postponed or canceled due to groups of coronavirus.
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As the team’s captains accumulated in midfield for the draw, followed by “Welcome to the Jungle” that sounded through the speaker, DeBoer minimized the risk, but also showed no interest in surrendering. He talked about seniors last year who saw their basketball tournaments or graduation ceremonies torn apart and spring athletes waiting for smart news that never came.
“I told our coaches, ‘This is a year they can focus on and let young kids know it’s not just about wins and defeats,'” DeBoer said. “These young people have the opportunity to play, which many others do not have. It is vital that they faint and laugh and make memories, and they want to perceive that the next moment or party is far from guaranteed.”
For South Dakota’s top football enthusiasts right now, the best schools are the game in town.
The Big Ten has cancelled its fall season, with great dismay along the way. The state of South Dakota and South Dakota are also dormant, expecting a spring imaginable with Augustana and USF.
Although some NAIA schools will soon be on the field, the State Activities Association’s resolve to move forward with preparatory football has put a ha on Friday night lights.
That’s a smart thing about Kim Nelson. Roosevelt’s coach is his top-ranked Class 11AAA team for next week’s first game against Brandon Valley, aware of the card space around him.
“I’m getting more and more positive about every day that goes by,” says Nelson, the best lucky coach in the state’s history if he counts his time in dual cities. “No one knows for sure, however, I think we’re going to play some games and maybe play them all. We’re a great school, so maybe we can absorb a good fortune or two.”
The key will be to deal with the instances when they arise. How many close contacts were there for this athlete? Should the total team or just a small athlete organization be closed? With more than 80 players on his roster, Roosevelt is much more prepared to deal with a group than, for example, Estelline, which lists 17 players and had to cancel their season opening due to instances.
These are conversations that take place across the country, with governors, superintendents, parents, and academics presenting a variety of game reviews that can be played safely (and you can safely attend categories).
At least 12 states, along with Minnesota and Colorado, boosted American football in the spring by proclaiming that touch play is conducive to social estrangement protocols. In South Dakota, the SDHSAA’s board of administrators voted unanimously in July to allow football and other fall games to advance, with policies back to the game in effect.
Many school districts have followed attendance restrictions in addition to mandatory protocols such as athlete detection, disinfection, and estrangement when possible. But the nature of football remains the same, not only in matches, but also in educational sessions, in conversion rooms, in bus trips. As instances begin to emerge, the Washington football team reported on a Wednesday, critics see the South Dakota season as futile training.
Advance supporters point to the inherent threat every time football players enter the field, an extension of Governor Kristi Noem’s mantra of “personal responsibility.” This is an argument with serious deficiencies in the context of infectious diseases, however, it is a popular position in the practice spaces at this time.
“Our players really feel that way,” Nelson said. “You’re talking about the best academics in the school who feel that their chances of contracting the virus and getting seriously ill are quite low. The worst component is that they are carriers, and that’s a problem, but they need to play football, and I hope we can for them.
“These guys are for a very short season, they lift weights, run and are educated throughout the winter, spring and summer so they can play nine or ten games. Do all that and then not have a season? That would be pretty hard to bear.
John Stiegelmeier is about to have loose fall Saturdays for the first time in nearly 4 decades.
In a 2020 general, the SDSU football coach would have prepared his team to host Butler on September 5, and then to the University of Nebraska next week to play in front of 90,000 fans. USD, meanwhile, lost a portion of the cash in the state of Iowa and the possibility of exhibiting the renovated DakotaDome in Vermillion.
Among the things that the COVID-19 stole the feeling of crossing a college campus on a cool autumn afternoon, supported by the rhythm of the band. Should we consider much greater sacrifices? Course.
But for Stiegelmeier and many others, a replacement regime will be difficult.
“My wife (Laurie) advised me to pass through the bonfire in our garden every Saturday and make it a tradition for game day,” the veteran coach said. “What will actually be embarrassing, especially for our players, is if we turn on the TV and watch the SEC or the big 12 football matches unfold. They’re going to ask, “Why them and not us?”
This is a non-unusual chorus in those days, especially with other approaches to ancient settings. The fury of the Ten Great Presidents to cancel fall football was basically directed to commissioner Kevin Warren, as staunch enthusiasts and players’ parents asked the league to change their minds.
This won’t happen, even if you’re possibly preparing for a winter or spring season. As coronavirus cases multiply on school campuses, it is difficult to oppose player protection as a valid fear, perhaps the only thing that can also separate primary colleges from their football income. Obviously, it’s not a resolution anyone wanted to take.
For South Dakota colleges, the loss is as financially significant as it is profound.
Since 1897, SDSU has missed only two football seasons in the autumn: in 1918 due to the Spanish influenza pandemic and in 1943 due to World War II. And while Stiegelmeier is deeply disappointed to sign up for this point of inactivity, he is not entirely surprised.
“It’s something everyone had an idea of, from the moment this happened,” he said. “No one wanted to hear it, but it didn’t take us off guard. The question of how we exist now? Players wonder what it means to be a student-athlete in the fall without football.”
One thing Stiegelmeier has been adamant about is taking the risk seriously, for him and his players. His preference for moving forward with the season countered a paternal fear for the hundred young men entrusted to his care.
“It’s not the flu,” he says. “It’s not a sprained ankle. This is anything that can get the best out of your equipment and lead to real fitness disorders due to COVID-19. At first, we said our decision-making tool would be”Are the other people in our program safe? “And we stick to that.”
Back at Parker, the Pheasants had to forget about a 50-12 loss to Arlington/Lake Preston in their first game after weeks wondering what the season would look like.
The state’s chief operating officer, Dan Swartos, who attended Friday’s game, worked hard with an organization of fitness professionals to expand back-to-play protocols for the sport. Each presented unique challenges, with a non-unusual thread: honesty is fundamental.
“Our biggest concern is that young people may not want to get ahead (with symptoms) because they’re concerned about media attention or the end of their season,” Swartos said. “We don’t want to see those things either, but we want to know what’s going on. It is vital that coaches are diligent and that parents and young people take this seriously.”
For Parker’s coach, Scott Hybertson, it’s an entirely new world, handling player selection, smaller educational teams and greater sanitation to keep this fragile season intact.
But the fact that your team is on the field, despite the result, running, touching and enjoying cheers, is a very smart commitment to be informed protection techniques on the go.
In this context, the beginning of Friday and the wonderful delight of South Dakota made sense as something worth trying, even when others came to the opposite conclusion.
“My assistant coach told our children,” Hybertson said. “We won the gift of being the only exhibition of the moment. We told our players to enjoy everything in front of us and enjoy those moments, because there is a chance they won’t last.”
Argus Leader Media columnist Stu Whitney can be contacted for [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter .