By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Almost daily comes a report from a league or conference or sport about a plan.

          Each plan is loaded with abstracts and possibilities and maybes and nothing concrete. And each is pretty much updated every few days – with wishful thinking more than anything - as little remains consistent in COVID-19, from the difference in numbers by state, if not by areas within each state, to governmental plans and policies.

          The GHSA publicly joined the crowd in the national holding pattern of “what if …?” and “but nothing is concrete” and “we just don’t know yet” offerings earlier this month, but things are getting more specific. Sort of.

          A Central Georgia coach told The Sports Report two weeks ago  that the GHSA was looking into the possibility of opening things up after the summer dead week in early July. A Savannah TV station’s website recent report on the GHSA’s “plan” even noted early in the story that “there is no concrete news to report.”

          GHSA executive director Robin Hines has said pretty much the same thing in different interviews recently.

          In a “Georgia Prep Sports: From a Distance” virtual podcast with Score Atlanta and the NFHS last week and on Wednesday (42 minutes in), Hines said basically the same things, with one new item.

          A few days after the release this week of guidelines by the National Federation of High Schools, the GHSA’s board of trustees will hear more about those recommendations and Georgia’s version at a virtual meeting Thursday afternoon. That’s the only item on the agenda: “Executive Director Dr. Robin Hines will address the committee on several issues including a discussion of plans to return to GHSA activities.”

          Ostensibly, the GHSA on Friday or Monday is likely to announce permission toward basic – and voluntary - levels of conditioning throughout the state, with all current guidelines to be enforced.

          “What that is really is a starting point with a lot of ideas for 51 associations,” Hines said in the podcast of the NFHS publication. “It’s not specific to Georgia. Everybody’s in a different place. (We’re not) going to be able to do some of the things that are there.”

          Hines noted that the release of such a document inspired too much enthusiasm toward believing things are anywhere near returning to a level of normal.

          “I don’t want to get (them) all excited,” he said of coaches and athletics directors and pretty much everybody else. “This is not going to be something to where it’s like normally what happens in June.”

          Hines has reiterated more than once a simple and clear message: The next step has nothing to do with the normal summer schedule and in no way involves typical summer routines of practices or 7 on 7 football competitions or softball/baseball batting practice, etc.

          Coaches, administrators, parents, and players haven’t quite grasped that there won’t be anything near normal for months. This next step is a simple one: returning players and coaches to abbreviated face-to-face activity, safely, that is solely based on conditioning, and even then, everything is on a time frame based on current state guidelines.

          “This has nothing to do with what’s going to happen the week after that, the week after that, in July, into August, and the first of the season,” Hines said on Wednesday’s podcast. “We’ve got a long way to go. … I’m prayerful, and I’m hopeful that we will be able to pick through our calendar and have a regular season and all that. But none of that is guaranteed or promised to us right now.”

          The GHSA is exploring findings from the NFHS panels as well as its own sports medicine advisory council. Hines will present information to the board, and discussion – some expected to be lively – will follow, with hopes, Hines said, of building a consensus that goes with the updated guidelines set by Governor Brian Kemp.

          “We just took a break in there for awhile,” Hines said of when Kemp shut schools down and the GHSA followed with recommendations and rulings suspending and then ending GHSA competition for the year.  

          The GHSA, as with virtually every other sports organization of size and impact, has been breaking down all sorts of plans and options and standards as the school year – such as it’s been – comes to a conclusion throughout the state, and will be ready with something when the time comes.

          Hines reiterated as much in a May 6 update on the GHSA’s website. That was updated on May 14 with Hines addressing “fake news” about an official GHSA plan, as well as offering more updates.

          “I am hopeful that we can implement a measured return to training with guidance in June,” he wrote. “All of the information needed to make such a decision is not available but we are working toward this goal.”

          But there have been unofficial “as of today” plans compiled by different groups. One plan’s hopes have specifics: practice to start on July 6 with the normal mandatory conditioning period of five days, two hours of practice a day, and then a helmets-shoulder pads period from July 13-24, with the first full-pad day on July 27.

          Hines talked on the podcast last week and with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last Wednesday, and little has changed, including no talk of anything but conditioning yet.

          The GHSA will first follow the instructions of Kemp as well as the various data involved in all decisions and plans. After that, the views of county boards of education and superintendents come into play, as well as those of parents.

          The considerations after that are many and complex, from conditioning to sanitizing and cleaning to how many people will be allowed to practice or work out in close proximity to testing to, well, just plenty.

          Fast-pitch softball, volleyball, and cross country are fall sports as well, and have their unique parameters to deal with.

          The general idea is 10 people – one coach, nine athletes – in a session, with serious cleaning after each session in, say, a weight room. There are other options to explore with outside workouts.

          Bibb County athletics director Barney Hester has met regularly with the county’s athletics directors since the stoppage.

          “You’ve got to have a plan,” Hester said. “I’ve got my guys getting a plan in place for Bibb County, given the fact that we can get back in June on a limited basis. (We’ve got) a plan if we can go back full time. We’ve got our guys (planning) if we can’t do nothing.”

          Hester and Hines both noted that it’s not just a GHSA decision, but one involving local administrators.

          “Once Robin approves it, and we’ve got a good plan in place in Bibb County, then I think Col. (Curtis) Jones will approve it for us,” Hester said of Bibb County superintendent Curtis Jones.

          There is also the likelihood that many parents won’t yet feel comfortable with their children, in any sport, returning to activity until the general COVID situation in Georgia – which has battled issues that past few weeks with inaccurately/inconsistently recorded information – is substantially clearer.

          Any face-to-face interaction, even six feet apart, will be welcomed, but coaches also know that a longer conditioning period for football hasn’t been this important in a few decades, long before year-round conditioning, let alone the barrage of camps and 7-on-7 competitions.

          Howard head football coach Paul Carroll noted that athletic players are likely to be in much better shape when things start up again than those up front, from generally being more active to finding some games of, say, pickup basketball, guidelines or not.

          “You worry about the big boys,” said Carroll, who played linebacker at Georgia Southern back in the 1990s. “I don’t know if they’re going to dedicate themselves like they need to. It’s all self-discipline now.”

          A lack of facilities as well as a lack of regular diet the past few months will have an impact on many high school athletes, but moreso bigger players. The probability of something starting up on June 1 does give athletes a date to focus on, and some time to start on some level of routine.

          Summer activities are voluntary, technically, and Hines said on the first podcast that coaches can’t tell players they won’t be on a team if they don’t participate in voluntary activities, although he knows there is pressure. Discipline is already an issue. Hines said on the podcast he’s getting reports of kids working out unsupervised at open fields.

          “They don’t need to do that,” Hines said last week, while hoping adults would step in and keep players from violating all the guidelines and exacerbating the problem.

          Coaches and athletics-oriented administrators have joyously reacted with any story the past few weeks from any state regarding the resumption of activity, but all have been basically the same story: everybody has hopes of returning to some form of activity soon, but everybody is on a wait-and-see status.

          As per Indiana’s recent update: “Provided there are no adjustments to Governor Eric Holcomb’s announced plans to re-open the State of Indiana, school sponsored summer activities may resume on July 1, 2020.”

          That, of course, is six weeks away. And pretty much every state can make or is making the same tentative-but-hopeful statement.

          A panel at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences released recommendations toward resuming sports in the state. The panel included specialists in pathology, family medicine, sports medicine, infectious disease and orthopaedic surgery.

          The recommendations are likely to be matched by most states before activities resume.

          Hester, who talked last week, before Hines and the GHSA set up Thursday’s meeting, is as ready as anybody.

          “You’ve got to think positive,” he said. “What it does is give hope to all those people involved.”