Spring sports season remains in limbo

The 2020 spring sports season is one giant cloud of confusion. Nobody knows for sure when the season will start. Nobody knows how late the season could go, and nobody knows if there will even be a spring season at all.

The Iowa High School Athletic Association and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union released a new spring sports schedule next week, but it assumes that schools in Iowa will open back up on May 1, the current target date set for the state of Iowa. With the ever-changing atmosphere surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, however, there are plenty of doubts that any of those plans will stay put.

If school were to resume on May 1, practices for track and field, golf, tennis and soccer will begin on May 1. The first competitions will take place on May 4 for track and field, golf and tennis, and the first soccer games will be on May 8.

Track and field, golf and tennis are currently scheduled for a postseason lead-up in late may, which cuts the regular season down to somewhere between 20-30 days. Soccer's postseason would begin in June.

'We have no clue or control of what the future may hold,” says Mt. Pleasant boys track and field coach Mitch Anderson. 'We have two options: Give up, therefore failing to be prepared for the possible season, or be prepared in case it does resume.

While spring athletes and coaches continue to prepare just in case, the COVID-19 cases just keep going up, darkening the shadow over both the 2020 spring and summer sports seasons.

In a Twitter poll conducted in early April, 58.9 percent of respondents said fall sports would most likely be the first season to pick up in the state of Iowa. 19.6 percent said games would start back up in the summer, 14.3 percent said winter, and only 7.1 percent said spring.

'It sure doesn't look promising, but all we can do is what we are told by the people in charge of those decisions,” says Fairfield girls golf coach Joe Kruzich. 'Ultimately, we need to have the health and safety of our student/athletes in the forefront of our minds. No matter how frustrating it is and how badly we want to have our respective seasons.”

Washington track coach Steve Roth says he still is holding out hope.

'I'm staying positive that we will have a season,” Roth says. 'And we will do whatever the state lets us do.”

Other coaches are less optimistic. Fairfield boys tennis coach Michael Holt, who is also the parent of a senior, says there's 'no chance,” the spring season will pick up. Holt says there was a great deal of disappointed when the season was originally postponed, but that he thinks the athletes understand the severity of the situation.

'I feel safety is the priority of our athletes,” Holt says. 'Under no circumstances should we jeopardize the health and welfare of these young people.”

Along with discussing ways to fit in the spring sports season, the IHSAA and IGHSAU have also discussed what to do with summer sports. Some argue that if the associations bump back the spring, it would only make sense to bump the summer back as well, to accommodate for athletes who play both spring and summer sports.

'Assuming we go back to school May 1, I feel the state has a good plan for how to make the most of the time we have,” says Mt. Pleasant Athletic Director and girls track coach Scot Lamm. 'I would ask them to shorten the summer season from 13 weeks down to 10, and have the opening week of competition pushed back two weeks, which would be a similar timeline to what we have had in the past as it relates to spring sports. If they go beyond May 1, I have very mixed feelings on how the Spring and Summer sports could look. I am confident however that we have two organizations that will work hard to provide something for our student athletes if possible.”

Iowans are expecting to hear more on the state's school plans later this week, but until then, sports players, coaches and fans will continue to face a giant question mark surrounding the spring timeline.