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The Look -- And Smell -- Of Football Has Changed For Safety's Sake
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It's here! Opening week of the 2020 Georgia High School Association’s football season. Can you believe it? Across the state, school officials, athletic directors, coaches and players have managed to make it to the starting gate in the face of a worldwide pandemic that has caused high school teams in some other states to watch from the sidelines.
It was back in June that the GHSA gave the go-ahead for teams to begin working out, along with a battery of restrictions and protocols aimed at keeping players and coaches safe. Teams started out working in small groups, with daily temperature screenings, socially distanced, with every player bringing their own water container.
“There are a lot of protocols to keep the kids safe," says Mill Creek coach Josh Lovelady. "We get a screening and players bring their backpack that has whatever they need, like an inhaler, and water jug every day."
Lovelady’s Hawks had their opening night dream thwarted because of a positive COVID-19 test. It wiped out the team’s first two games, including a much-anticipated meeting with Parkview in the opener.
I had a chance to stop by Parkview and saw the separate water bottles, but practice looked like practice. The same was true when I stopped by Centennial, where Sean O'Sullivan has taken over as head coach after leading North Atlanta to a postseason appearance last year. I ventured to the westside of Atlanta and found Rodney Cofield sending his Douglass Astros through conditioning drills, spaced six feet apart. Douglass is coming off a state semifinal appearance last season, and eventually practice would have to get real.
"Football is not a restricted or safe-distanced sport," says Cofield. "To me there is no way possible that you can practice football with restrictions. It's impossible.”
Franklin Stephens’ McEachern Indians will open the season against North Gwinnett on Thursday. While his team prepares within the GHSA issued protocols, his concerns were logistics and weather. He needed more buses so that the players could be spaced while riding. Schools and school districts are pretty much on their own.
"I'm still curious about the elephant in the room," says Stephens. "How do we put it back together and how is it going to look."
It’s different, North Gwinnett coach Bill Stewart says.
"There are different protocols in place," says Stewart. "We have some different structures for practice to keep things moving. We have protocols about distancing and cleaning and screening, but when it all boils down to it, you're still playing football, we are still practicing football and that part hasn't changed."
Stewart is right. I visited North Gwinnett and found the Bulldogs hard at work. I also observed a unique measure aimed at keeping players safe. Red dots, spaced six feet apart, have been sprayed on the sidelines of the practice field. During breaks, players are to stand on a dot to rest and drink water. Several players forgot to stay on their red dot during my visit. Let's just say, the coaching staff had ways of reminding them.
"You get used to it," says Stewart. "But the most important thing is to not get complacent and get relaxed with it. We have to stay the course and be consistent and persistent."
That's what's going on outside on the practice field, but for me the most impressive thing about this preseason is happening inside the building. I've been to a lot of high schools and if you need to get to the football locker room most of the time you don't have to look very hard, you just follow your nose. You will often smell the locker room before you actually see the locker room. Ahhh, but the fragrance is different in 2020.
"We have to watch the way to come in and out of the locker room and weight room," says Stewart. "When the kids are done with practice, we spray their helmets and shoulder pads with disinfectant. Then in the locker room before they leave, they take all of their stuff home and we spray their lockers down. There's a lot of cleaning going on."
Lovelady says, “We spray down the practice dummies after every session. Now we have to disinfect the footballs. In 26 years of coaching, I have never had to disinfect a ball. For me it's gone from ‘who's going to block that 3 technique’ and ‘what coverage are we in’ to ‘who's got the spray bottle?’"
It has been a preseason that will be long remembered for having no spring football, no 7-on-7s, and no scrimmages. After visiting a number of practices and observing the teams adjusting to the new protocols I can unequivocally say that it looks like football, it sounds like football, but it smells like Lysol. Maybe that's why we can't find any in the stores. Let the games begin!
Get ready for Football Friday's in Georgia , coming soon on the great GPB!
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