Paul Neidig expects his first year as IHSAA commissioner to begin the same way that every other fall season has for decades — with football games being played on Friday nights, soccer and volleyball matches, all that other good stuff.
Well, maybe not "expects." But he’s hopeful.
"I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to be competing in the fall as we have known it in the past," Neidig said.
The caution still has to be included; there are too many unknowns involved with the COVID-19 pandemic to make predictions with any kind of certainty just yet, especially with the start of the school year still almost two full months away.
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With the week-to-week numbers having steadily declined since peaking in the final week of April, Neidig has reason to be upbeat — especially with the state giving the green light last Friday for school campuses to re-open on July 1 and fall athletic competition to start on schedule.
"We are focused on a return to sports as we know it in the fall," Neidig said. "We’ve got a couple of months left here, and we’re looking at it as this is what we know today — but in two weeks we may know something different, and it could be good, it could be bad.
"We’re not going to say, ‘This is a definite,’ and it may not be. But we are working toward a fall start, just as we have for many, many years in the past."
Anticipating the re-opening of campuses, the IHSAA had already given teams to begin working out together on July 1. That would begin the process of taxiing down the runway in preparation for a full fall sports takeoff.
But even if the start of the school year goes off without a hitch, don’t expect sports to look exactly the same as they have in years past. Social distancing guidelines are still in place and will likely continue to exist in some form for quite some time. More than 100,000 Americans have died as a result of this coronavirus, and it’s far too early to claim victory over it; numbers are still rising in some states.
There’s no way of knowing yet what kind of impact that the gradual re-opening of businesses and churches, the growing sizes of social gatherings — or the protests happening in cities in towns nationwide — might have on the spread of the virus. So while numbers have been declining in Indiana for more than a month and Neidig is confident for now that sports will be played this fall, he’s not ready to commit to many specifics.
Especially when it comes to the question of whether fans will be allowed to pack the bleachers and cheer for their favorite teams.
"On crowds … it’s just too early to tell," Neidig said. "Our first task that we’re focused on is getting our coaches back in touch with our kids and let’s start working on the things they do in the summer — strength training, skill development. That’s our number one goal. Our number two goal is to get our kids in practice at the start of August. And then our third goal in this is to start competing."
With so much still unknown, local administrators aren’t in any hurry to make concrete predictions about what August and beyond might look like. Edinburgh athletic director David Walden is one of many taking it step by step, focusing on that first goal for now.
"The only thing I’ve talked about with our administration is when our facilities open up in July, how we’re going to handle it," he said.
In late May, the National Federation of High School Associations (NFHS) released a set of guidelines for gradually getting back to action in the fall. Those guidelines included a three-phase plan that broke sports up into groups by risk; football, not surprisingly, is classified as "high risk," while sports like golf and cross country were on the low end.
Most of the ideas in the NFHS plan — no shared water fountains or coolers, temperature checks and screening of all athletes and coaches, limits on the size of workout groups — were included in the IN-CLASS guidelines released by the governor’s office and the Indiana Department of Education on Friday.
Neidig added that the IHSAA may not take a one-size-fits-all approach with certain aspects of its plans, because the virus has had varying impacts across different areas of the state. There will almost certainly be some leeway for individual schools to do things their own way.
"Schools can provide more restrictive guidelines if you wish," Neidig said. "It’s kind of like if you go to Menards, they want you to wear a mask; if you go to Lowe’s, it’s optional. I think that’s kind of where we’ll be in the fall, because every community’s different. What this looks like in Marion County and Cass County is different than what it looks like in Johnson County or Gibson County."
Johnson County has consistently been among the Indiana counties with the most cases since the outbreak began, although its numbers have tapered off considerably relative to other urban and suburban counties. The totals for such areas as Fort Wayne, Elkhart and South Bend have surged past ours in recent weeks, and there’s no real way of knowing when or where the next spike might be. But for now, the IHSAA and schools across the state are planning to run on schedule.
As state and local governments have gone through the process of re-opening the country in recent weeks, it has become clear in most cases that financial considerations were factoring at least somewhat into the decision-making process. With football accounting for such a large share of the income for high school athletic departments and the IHSAA, one would expect those entities to feel a bit of pressure to get back to normal.
Losing the spring season, which is usually revenue-neutral at best in most places, wasn’t a huge deal. Losing the fall — especially football — could be crippling. So what if there is a second wave of COVID-19 in the fall and the state football tournament suffers the same fate that boys basketball did in March?
"Let’s say the fourth week of the season, Ben Davis has an outbreak," Center Grove athletic director Jon Zwitt said. "Does that mean just Center Grove and Ben Davis don’t play that night, and we miss that one game, or does it all of a sudden become something like what happened with Avon, where they shut down so everybody else, domino effect, starts shutting down? What’s going to happen with that?"
"We’ve planned for a rainy day," Neidig added. "A rainy day is here, and we’re making it through. But if we get to a point where we cannot contest a football tournament, our office will look drastically different in the future. I hate to say that, but it’s the reality."
Despite that reality, Neidig insists that dollars won’t steer the IHSAA toward a particular outcome.
"The first and foremost is the safety of our student-athletes — and spectators," he said. "A dollar earned or a ticket should not drive that decision. And I get it; I understand the economic impact of not getting back to sport and not having fans on our schools and on the association. But it just would not be the right thing to do to do it blindly and not consider our fans, spectators and kids."
What those considerations might be will depend largely upon what the state’s higher-ups decide later this summer. Fall sports could be contested without any fans present at all, with reduced crowds or at full capacity — but allowing fans back in would bring an additional set of concerns.
How do you keep fans spread out? Who polices the crowds and makes sure that people aren’t getting too close to one another? Will masks be required for spectators? Those are just some of the discussions that will probably need to take place before summer’s end.
"People keep talking about in stadiums spreading out six feet across," Zwitt said, "but I’m not worried about the people to my right and left, because everybody’s yelling and spitting, it’s going forward. It’s the guy sitting behind me that I’m worried about — because when he stands up and yells ‘bad call!’ at the top of his lungs, all those droplets are coming my way."
A lot can happen between now and early August, and there’s no magic 8-ball offering iron-clad guarantees. Neidig, the IHSAA and the hundreds of member schools are all sailing through uncharted waters here, and the waves may be choppier than expected in the coming months. Mapping out what fall will look like is going to take some time, no matter how eager sports fans are to read that map.
"There’s so many questions and not enough answers," Zwitt said. "But patience — that’s all we can be right now is patient."
