Safer at Home order extended
By Greg Seubert
The original schedule called for New London High School’s baseball team to head to Waupaca Saturday, April 18, for a doubleheader.
Instead, the Comets and Bulldogs are dealing with a season that never got off the ground because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The extension of Wisconsin’s Safer at Home order to at least Tuesday, May 26, essentially ended the season for baseball, softball, track, boys’ golf, boys’ tennis and girls’ soccer teams across the state.
Gov. Tony Evers’ extension of the order, which was set to expire Friday, April 24, didn’t come as a surprise to Jeff Fahser, Weyauwega-Fremont High School’s athletic director.
“With all the professional sports and colleges closing down, I did foresee that it probably was going to happen,” he said. “I’m not really shocked, but I feel really bad for everybody involved.”
Evers announced the order’s extension April 16.
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, which oversees high school sports in the state, stopped short of cancelling the season. The WIAA Board of Control will meet Tuesday, April 21, to weigh its options.
Fahser had been making arrangements for games and meets to be played after the Safer at Home order expired.
“We were planning,” he said. “I was getting everything ready up until March 16. We had one week of track practice and we were going to start softball practice. I thought that we would probably have some games in May and hopefully, Safer at Home would be done by April 24. When it got extended today (April 16), I guess that’s not going to happen.”
Waupaca High School baseball coach Rocky Mondello was looking forward to another season in the North Eastern Conference.
“I was being tentatively optimistic,” he said. “When we left school a month ago, we were just starting to get into the rhythm of things. I started contacting the guys, I ordered a bunch of stuff and started to put our fundraiser together.
“All of a sudden, that was put on hold,” he said. “I was like, ‘OK, a few weeks, whatever.’ The longer we went, the less optimistic I became. It’s been tough.”
Fahser said about 100 students planned to compete in Weyauwega-Fremont’s spring sports, including 50 in track, 30 in baseball, 25 in softball and 10 in boys’ golf.
“I haven’t really said anything to anybody as of yet, but I’m sure that they’re probably finding out as they look online and on Facebook,” he said. “The disappointment is probably hitting home right now simply because there’s probably not going to be a season.”
“I think a lot of them are going to figure it out,” Mondello said. “Over the last week, I’ve been writing letters to each of my varsity guys, the seniors especially. I’ve been emailing them and we have a Facebook page that I manage and I’ve been sending out little videos here and there for them. I was telling the guys, ‘You might have to do things a little different. You might have to go out in the backyard and do some stuff on your own.’ Before they closed the schools, I went in and cleaned out all of our equipment that I have in my garage right now in case somebody said, ‘Hey, can I borrow a bat or a bucket of wiffle balls for a day?’
“I know that they’re busy and I don’t want to interfere too much with that, but I want them to keep thinking about baseball,” he added. “It’d be kind of tough to do now.”
Last year’s Waupaca baseball team tied for third place in the North Eastern Conference and made it to a Division 2 regional final.
“I feel bad for these guys,” Mondello said. “I have eight seniors and I know that these guys were looking forward to this season for a while. They’ve been showing up at open gyms. All of them played multiple sports.
“They had their final football game, final soccer game or final hockey or basketball game knowing that they’re still going to have their final baseball game,” he said. “They don’t get that. It doesn’t matter if it ends in the first game of the postseason or in the championship game at a state. There is a feeling that every athlete experiences when they know that they are not going to lace up or suit up for the next game. It always hits you. I ended my high school career in a state championship game and winning it. It’s a great feeling when you’re there and you do it, but you also get the feeling of ‘That’s it.’”
Instead of preparing their team for another season, Mondello and other coaches across Wisconsin are now looking at 2021.
“We have 49 guys in our program, 19 juniors and seniors,” he said. “We’re talking about next season now and I’m going to have 11 juniors that I’ve never seen play and have not had any varsity experience. What I’ve been hoping for this last month is let’s say we don’t go back to school, but we can arrange a high school season to start at the end of May and maybe go into June a little with a modified schedule. I’d still get some closure and some time with these boys. We’d do a state tournament in June and you’d still get to play your last high school season.”
Mondello expects the fallout from COVID-19 to continue into the fall sports season.
“If your weight room is closed, how can you be prepared for some of your fall sports?” he asked. “If these kids can’t go play soccer on Comet Field with some of their teammates, how are they going to be able to be field-ready when the time comes?”
In the meantime, athletes and coaches are left to wonder what could have happened this spring.
“It’s a very different feeling than a season-ending injury or anything like that,” Mondello said. “This was taken from our teammates and our opponents. Everybody’s going through the same thing. I would like to think I’m very close to these guys. I would just love to bring them together and say, ‘Guys, here’s the deal, it’s been cancelled,’ but I can’t do that. I can’t shake their hands. For the 20-plus years that I’ve coached, I’ve shook players’ hands as they walked off the field or handed in their uniform for the last time.
“We always talk about how fast it goes: your four years of high school, your last season,” he said. “I hope that everybody realizes that things can change. You have to take every moment for what it is. I don’t care if it’s your summer, baseball or a dance recital. It’s going to be over at some point. Something like this, we don’t know what that end date is.”