Scott Swanson
High school athletics kick off this week in earnest after a year in cold storage and we should all be happy, even those of us who’ve never warmed a seat at a sports event.
We’ve reported a few sports stories during that period, but most haven’t been about actual contests, other than the few occasions last fall when softball and baseball players got a chance to play other teams for a few brief weeks and the golf team played an intrasquad round, which normally wouldn’t have gotten anyone’s attention – except that it was an actual sports event.
The track team was all set to host a small meet, following several weeks of diligent practices by athletes eager to do something besides sit on their behinds, but that rug got yanked out from under their feet after an athlete developed a “presumptive case” of COVID and a Sweet Home Junior High School staffer was reportedly diagnosed with the coronavirus, prompting administrators to hastily end that “spring mini season.”
We’ve had multiple signings by athletes moving on to compete in college – quite a few more than normal for Sweet Home, which has been a cheerful side story during this coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus has also given us an opportunity to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: chronicle some of the big moments in Husky history. We’ve done some of those; we could do a lot more. But I think all of us would prefer live action.
I’m not going to get into specific critiques here of the whats, whys and wherefores of Oregon state leaders’ and school officials’ attempts to keep kids healthy, other than to say it’s become increasingly evident that the road taken to save kids from COVID has resulted in other, possibly longer-lasting negative side effects – damage to psyches and social adjustment, trust and patience levels, educational achievement, to name a few of the obvious. I’m sure this will all be fleshed out by researchers down the road, so I’ll stop at what my eyes can see.
Whether all that has been justified by the threat will be, I’m sure, hotly debated for decades.
I’ve been thinking a lot about kids in the last few weeks, and particularly as our new reporter, Benny Westcott (a former high school and college athlete himself) and I have prepped for the start of Season 2, which will include what normally are fall sports, played out over a period of about six weeks.
As is our usual practice, The New Era staff has put together a sports preview section that you can find inside this newspaper, focusing on the five sports that are kicking off this week.
It’s been a challenge, partly because the landscape keeps shifting on literally a day-to-day basis. Late last week we had a number of stories ready to go that included info on what was to come. As of press time, they are significantly different than the originals, thanks to continuing mind-changes and policy changes by sports authorities and athletic directors that impact what we do here. Changes are often literally last-minute.
I know we’re not the only ones. Coaches and our own athletic director have had to juggle these balls (and grab the ones that come flying into the pile) as well.
Suffice to say that, although we’re glad sports are back, and I’m personally delighted to see kids doing something active, it’s not going to be a perfect scenario (as you’ll learn when you read the preview stories). Attendance will limited and masks will be required for everyone – spectators, officials, coaches and athletes. (That’s something else I’m not going into here: the pros and cons of masks.)
Now we just need to keep our kids on the field, the court, the trail.
Here’s what I can say: Linn County has the lowest COVID numbers we’ve experienced since last summer and that’s the reason why Sweet Home High School can permit 150 people in an athletic facility (per “Moderate” risk restrictions) versus the 75 we were looking at a week ago (“High” risk). The numbers have come down, and I think the best advice we can all accept is this: Just keep doing what we’ve been doing.
Apparently, it’s working.
And our kids are getting the payoff for those efforts.