Prep football season delayed until Oct. 9

August 8, 2020

By Ron Brocato, Sports

What would an autumn in New Orleans be without high school football?

As the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) continues to delay the start of serious football practice due to the recent spike in COVID-19 cases throughout the more populated areas of the state, people are beginning to fear that might become a reality.

Already, LHSAA executive director Eddie Bonine has pushed back the start of the high school season twice as the abundance of new cases has made it impossible for Louisiana to enter Phase 3 of recovery. On Aug. 5, Bonine announced that the start of the 2020 prep football season is now scheduled for the second week of October, which would normally be the sixth week of the regular season.

In that event, the playoffs also will be delayed, causing the LHSAA to resort to having just eight weeks or fewer of regular-season play and fewer teams qualifying for the postseason. And, as the weeks go by and the delays continue, the season could be reduced to even fewer games.

If the season is reduced to six weeks, District 9-5A, the seven-team Catholic League, may consider playing a district-only schedule.

Since the time public and non-public schools have held separate playoffs, public schools (designated as non-select) have maintained their normal 32-team brackets in all five classifications. But private and parochial schools (or select) have not had enough schools to fill large playoff brackets.

And if COVID-19 positive numbers do not decrease in the coming weeks, it is possible that the season could be canceled.

That would be inconceivable to the athletes, the support groups, the parents and fans of high school football, said Archbishop Rummel athletic director Jay Roth Aug. 5 following Bonine’s announcement.

“The beginning of the school year means prep football, and prep football means the beginning of school,” said Roth, who served as the school’s head football coach for 23 years until 2019. “So, it’s going to be different this year walking through the halls knowing there’s not going to be a game on a Friday or a Saturday. No band. No cheerleaders. But the whole country is experiencing this at every level.”

And if there isn’t a season? “It will be crushing to the football players,” Roth continued. “Baseball at least got in a dozen games before this (pandemic struck). They got a little taste of playing in their senior year. If the seniors don’t have a season, they can’t get that back.

“Football is one sport you can’t play in a beer league when you’re 30 years old. You can play pickup basketball and softball, and you can run for the rest of your life. But you can’t put the pads on ever again.”.

Like other high school athletic directors, Roth is maintaining his desire to have a season, and he commiserates with his fellow coaches whose preparation for a campaign is being hampered by ongoing events.

“This changes the way coaches approach a season,” he said. “They can’t really practice from Aug. 7 to Oct. 8. That’s two months of lost time, almost like a summer. The players are going to have to go back to the (pre-season) conditioning and the weight lifting until they can put on the pads. And, as an AD, I have to worry about ticket-takers, who can be in the press box and on the sidelines, and I won’t know that until Phase 3 is in.”

But that won’t be a problem for the sport of volleyball, which is on schedule to begin play on Sept. 8. But the matches may have to be played in empty gymnasiums, said Mount Carmel’s head coach and athletic director April Hagadone. Her volleyball team has won the last six Division I state championships.

“I just told the players to take it one day at a time,” she said. “We won’t have any tournaments this year, which will cut down on our schedule. And, as of now, we will be allowed to hold two scrimmages after Labor Day. We were practicing the varsity and junior varsity players together, but we can only have 24 players and one coach on the floor, so we’re having to split our practices.”

Ron Brocato can be reached at rbrocato@clarionherald.org.