Area ADs uncertain about summer

'When will it end?”

That's the question most Americans are asking on a day to day baseis. But for summer sports fans in the state of Iowa, the question might look a little different. 'When will it begin?”

Spring sports were officially canceled in mid-April in the state of Iowa. For many states that meant the sports calendar was over, but in the Hawkeye State, there was still a little hope. Iowa is one of the few states with a summer sports season, so baseball and softball seasons still had hpoe.

Flash forward to early May, and not much has changed. Gov. Kim Reynolds has set June 1 as the decision day for summer sports, and if the COVID-19 numbers have fallen enough by that time, schools can scramble to field baseball and softball teams for an abbreviated season.

If Gov. Reynolds gives the thumbs up, the Iowa High School Athletic Association and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union will make it official on their end, but for now, nobody knows whether the summer sports season will ever start up, and if it does, how different the two sports will look.

'We will really have to take into consideration of the possible spreading of germs,” Cardinal Athletic Director Chris Becker says. 'We will need to make sure kids have their own water bottles and keep equipment clean, especially if that equipment is being shared. Safety of players, coaches, umpires, and fans is always a priority, but it will need to be ramped up to another level.”

First, there are the logistics of the games themselves. Baseball and softball aren't as high-contact as some high school sports, but some ideas have been floated to implement social distancing measures. Among those ideas are umpires standing behind the pitcher's mound instead of behind the catcher, and to implement rules to try and cut down on tag plays.

Ideally, if the season gets the thumbs up, that means it is safe enough to be played at its full potential, but that doesn't mean everyone will be on board. Even if the state does allow the summer season to go on, there is no telling which schools will continue to field a team, and which will pull out.

'As of now, we are in wait and see mode,” Mid-Prairie AD Tyler Hotz says. 'We are meeting as conference AD's to look at potential schedules.

The good news for area ADs is that games weren't scheduled to take place until late May. The bad news is, teams will need a couple of weeks to practice before the first games, as the high school sports lockdown prevents teams from practicing together.

'We will start practice and start playing games when the state gives us information,” says Washington AD Brent Van Weelden. 'The state will set these dates for us. We plan on having a season regardless of the length that the state allows.”

If games can start in mid-June, the state will either have to play a shorter season than usual or back up the postseason calendar to go deeper into July. Conferences would need to jumble the current schedules to get league play in, and that makes fitting in nonconference games even more difficult.

Figuring out how to make up game nights will be one thing, but even if schools get the summer figured out, future schedules are also getting effected by the time off.

'I think the main thing that we are struggling with the most is that we don't have any control over the situation,” New London AD Ben Fry says. 'Our schedules are typically planned out a year in advance and with this pandemic currently placing a question mark over the season we're currently in, it is halting the scheduling and planning for next year's activities, due to the fact that we're having to ‘redo' or ‘revisit' the schedules that we've had in place since last year.”

When June 1 arrives, some of these questions will be answered. Will ADs be scrambling to get games in place? Will there be extra rules in place to keep up social distancing practices? Or will high school baseball and softball just be the latest in an ever-growing list of sports that are being forced to take the year off?