Area high school coaches hopeful there still will be a season -- but with COVID numbers up, is time running out?

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Ryan Sharp looked out over the football field at Paloma Valley High School as he spoke with a reporter on the phone. The school’s athletic director listened to the question as he watched players running sprints and doing calisthenics five yards apart – no pads worn, no footballs or blocking sleds in sight.

Ryan, do you think full practices and games are really going to happen?

“I get asked that so many times a day,” Sharp said with a sigh. “At this point, I’ve stopped guessing. We just continue to have conditioning with no equipment. They run, do pushups, squats … Like everyone else says, we’re just waiting for guidance from the state.”

For six weeks, athletes in every sport at Paloma Valley and Heritage high schools have been working out in preparation for the start of a COVID-delayed season. Still not allowed in the classroom for study, they supplement their distance learning with athletic conditioning drills. This is done so in small groups, with athletes practicing social distancing and wearing masks when not engaged in cardio exercises.

The conditioning plan was approved by the Perris Union High School District Board of Education in an Oct. 1 meeting. It placed each sport in one of three categories according to contact and risk, then laid out three phases for progression from conditioning to modified practice to regular practice. At the time, the hope was that COVID-19 numbers would continue to decline and the state would approve a delayed high school sports season beginning in December for some teams and January for others.

So where are they now? Still running, doing pushups and squats. COVID-19 numbers are worse than before, with virtually the entire state in the high-risk purple tier. The first regular-season games – volleyball matches – are scheduled for Dec. 12. But coaches and athletic directors can’t even move their athletes out of Phase 1 of conditioning.

How many pushups and squats can one do without a ball to play with before extreme boredom sets in – or has it already? 

“Fortunately, the excitement level of the kids to do something hasn’t waned,” Sharp said as coaches, administrators and athletes continue to wait for guidance from the state on whether high school sports will be allowed at all in the coming months.

“In a regular practice season, you would have athletes show up late or miss a practice or two. Now it seems everyone gets here 30 minutes early. They want to get out of the house and do something so bad, just to be with their teammates.”

Sharp and Heritage athletic director Scott Moore have to admit that the concern about a sports season during an ongoing pandemic is increasing. They weren’t given any more hope, either, this week when the CIF Southern Section announced it was once again closing its office and was bound by state health officials’ decision to postpone the anticipated release of an updated youth sports guidance document.

The state’s COVID-19 positivity rate has risen to 8.3 percent, Riverside County Public Health Director Kim Saruwatari reported to the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. “California is in the steepest increase of cases as we’ve seen through the entire pandemic,” she said.

Where does that leave high school athletes and coaches? Doing the only thing they believe they can – keep working out and hoping.

“We’re hanging in there,” Moore said this week. “Everyone is staying pretty positive. The coaches and the kids just want that social and emotional interaction, so they’re staying out there. I haven’t seen a huge downturn in enthusiasm or drop in attendance.”

Moore did admit, like Sharp, that the Dec. 12 volleyball season openers weren’t going to happen, nor were any other official games scheduled soon after that. Football season was rescheduled to begin in January, but even that might have to be pushed further back – if allowed at all.

“As I’ve told several people, games will not be allowed while we’re in purple,” Sharp said, referring to the most restricted state tier. “Everyone is doing a fantastic job of following the rules – social distancing and using masks when required. But yes, there’s a concern about how much time we have.

“If we have to push seasons back, we’ll just cut games off the beginning of the schedule. But at some point, having a minimum number of games will become a factor. For football we have a full 10-game schedule, but the minimum would be getting the league schedule in, weeks 6-10.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to make an announcement in the coming days about possible further restrictions in public activity during the pandemic. While everyone waits to see what will happen, prep sports remains stuck on a proverbial treadmill.

“Everything is put on hold,” Moore said. “I’m hopeful, but I just don’t know for sure. No one does.”