WIAA board OKs later start
By Greg Seubert
Now that he knows Waupaca High School’s fall sports teams have an opportunity to compete, it’s time for Joe Sbertoli to get to work.
One of his duties as the Waupaca School District’s activities director is to schedule events for the school’s football, volleyball, cross country boys’ soccer and girls’ golf teams.
Sbertoli has plenty of games, matches and meets to reschedule after the WIAA Board of Control gave its approval to a fall sports season.
The board’s 8-3 vote on July 23 answered the question of whether a fall sports season will be held, but also set later starting dates for each sport.
Cross country and girls’ golf, tennis and swimming teams can begin practicing Monday, Aug. 17, while football, volleyball and boys’ soccer teams cannot start until Monday, Sept. 7.
The earliest dates for first competitions are Thursday, Aug. 20 (girls’ golf); Friday, Aug. 21 (girls’ tennis); Tuesday, Aug. 25 (cross country and girls’ swimming); Tuesday, Sept. 15 (volleyball and boys’ soccer); and Wednesday, Sept. 23 (football).
Waupaca’s football team was originally scheduled to open its season Friday, Aug. 21, at home against Wrightstown.
“With start dates changing, that means we have to adjust schedules,” Sbertoli said. “We will begin that process right away. I’ve already had some discussions with our conference schools. Now that we know start days are adjusted, how do we adjust our conference schedules? We’ll continue to work on that.”
Changes in store
The changes are in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“About an hour after the meeting concluded, we hopped on a virtual Zoom meeting with our conference ADs to just start talking about it and start preparing,” Sbertoli said. “We started those initial conversations about what it could look like. It’ll take us a little while to get all of those details ironed out. That’s going to be the big challenge.”
Sbertoli is dealing with two conferences, as the Comet football team competes in the Bay Conference and the volleyball, cross country, boys’ soccer and girls’ golf teams compete in the North Eastern Conference.
“In a typical year, you like to have these schedules ironed out months ahead of time,” he said. “That will make it a little more challenging, but we’ll all work together as ADs across the state and start plugging away so we can have something prepared.”
Concerns over COVID-19 caused the WIAA to cancel the 2020 spring sports season, as well as boys’ and girls’ state tournament basketball games.
The district has safety protocols in place to help prevent the spread of the virus, according to Sbertoli.
“Our buildings and grounds were great about helping us get extra sanitizing materials,” he said. “We have spray bottles that can be used on hands and equipment. All of our teams, one of the first things they do is grab the sanitation materials and do a symptoms checklist. If students are in the weight room, the equipment gets sanitized in between uses.
“If a coach goes, ‘Hey, I’d like to start having some contact days next week,’ I meet with them and walk them through the safety protocols we have in place,” he added. “Our coaches have done an outstanding job with all of that. As we’ve learned over the last five months, things sometimes change on a daily basis. We’ll continue to monitor guidelines from the WIAA, local health officials and the (Wisconsin) Department of Health Services.”
No state tournaments?
Each of the WIAA’s sports – spread over fall, winter and spring seasons – ends with a state tournament. That may not be the case this fall, as details of each tournament series will be determined in the coming days.
The board’s action also provides schools unable to start fall sports in 2020 an opportunity to conduct their fall season in the spring of 2021. The board directed WIAA executive staff to develop details and calendars for an alternative three-sport season in the second semester of the 2020-21 school year to be presented at a later date.
Sbertoli said fans and athletes attending fall sporting events can expect changes.
“It’s the same message you hear all the time of keeping your physical distance; wearing a mask, especially in those situations where you can’t always stay 6 feet apart; washing your hands; trying to avoid touching your mouth and face,” he said.
“All of those things we can do to help slow down the spread of the virus will allow us a greater opportunity to be able to have the activities that we all really miss and want to get back to,” he said. “The more we can do to slow the spread, the better the opportunities we can provide for our kids. Anything anybody can do to help that spread is always a positive thing that we encourage.”