Practices, games to start in September
By Greg Seubert
More than 50 athletes showed up July 21 for the first day of the Weyauwega-Fremont High School football program’s annual summer camp not knowing if there was going to be a season this year.
By the time the camp wrapped up four days later, they knew that plans for a season are in the works.
The WIAA Board of Control met July 23 and approved a delayed start to a fall sports season in Wisconsin in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
More details for a football season still have to be worked out, but that doesn’t matter to Weyauwega-Fremont football coach Pat Fee.
“In talking with our administration, I said, ‘Whatever it takes and whatever we need to do to give these kids a chance, let’s do it,’” he said. “We now have a little more firm ground on when we’re going to be able to start.”
Football teams will have to wait until Monday, Sept. 7, to start practice and won’t be able to play their first game until Wednesday, Sept. 23. Weyauwega-Fremont’s original schedule called for the Indians to open their season Thursday, Aug. 20, in Stevens Point against Pacelli.
A late start to the season means games will need to be rescheduled.
“It was nice to have camp because we were able to announce that last night and it made the kids happy,” Fee said July 24 after the four-day camp wrapped up. “It was almost like a relief. We had 50 kids come in and they want to play.”
Conference changes
A revamped schedule isn’t the only change the Indians will deal with this season. A conference realignment plan that takes effect this year places Weyauwega-Fremont in the Central Wisconsin-Large Conference with Amherst, Manawa, Nekoosa, Shiocton, Spencer/Columbus Catholic, Stratford and Wittenberg-Birnamwood.
The conference includes Stratford, last year’s Division 5 runner-up; Amherst, a Division 5 state semifinalist; and Manawa and Spencer/Columbus Catholic, teams that made it to the second round of the playoffs in divisions 6 and 5 last year, respectively.
“The top two are good and the ones right below them are really good as well,” Manawa coach Brad Johnson said. “It’s almost like the playoffs every single week. It’s exciting, but it scares me that we don’t have the prep to make that as good of football as we hope it could be. There are going to be more mistakes, playbooks are going to smaller. It takes some of the creativity out of it. It really limits what you can do if you’re following guidelines.”
The conference now includes teams from Waupaca, Portage, Outagamie, Shawano, Wood and Marathon counties.
“Our conference now has six different counties,” Fee said. “Do we just play (teams from) our county or the counties around us? I don’t care and I don’t think the kids do.”
Johnson said he supports WIAA Board of Control member Phil Ertl’s suggestion to begin football practice Monday, Aug. 24.
“I can understand why the schools would want to avoid us having contact with other teams before the school year starts because if a (COVID-19) breakout would happen, it may push off the start of the school year,” he said. “What I was confused with is why we wouldn’t be allowed our contact days two weeks prior so that first week of school is our first game. Now, how are we supposed to install a playbook? You get two-a-day practices in that first two weeks (of practice) and now, that’s gone.
“I’m not going to ask some kid to stay until 7:30 on the first night of school because we have to install our playbook, go through a walk-through and then go out on the field, practice and not be very good at it in a few weeks when we have a game,” he said. “We have limited time and I guess I’m kind of confused by the decision to wait until Sept. 7. I definitely supported Phil Ertl. I thought he did a great job of pushing for the 24th (of August). I was on board with that, but my vote doesn’t count.”
No playoffs?
Besides playing fewer games, the board also discussed the possibility of not holding playoffs or a state championship series at the end of the season.
“I saw a lot of coaches talking about how we just want to get the kids back together and playing,” Johnson said. “I agree with all of that, but a lot of these kids set dreams and goals years ago. You have a kid that dreams of getting to Madison. If there’s no reward at the end of the season, it makes it really tough to make every game count. There’s not that culminating factor.
“I just want to be coaching my boys, but at the same time, kids don’t look at it that way,” he added. “They don’t want to be just playing, they want to be competing. You play the game to compete. If we can, we should try to have playoffs at the end of the year, even if they’re smaller with the top two in each conference.”
Johnson and his coaching staff held a camp for Manawa players July 13-17.
“It went great,” he said. “We haven’t had anybody come down with COVID-19. All the coaches were masked up the whole time and did a great job with that. We didn’t really go out on the field. We have a pretty veteran team, so we did a lot of classroom time. I think most of the data points to sitting in a classroom makes for a more likely chance that (the virus) is passed on than being spread out and social distancing on a field. Our kids did a good job and they followed the routine that we asked of them.”
Although there are still questions to be answered, Fee is looking forward to another season with his team.
“I hope it happens,” he said. “We’re going to do everything we possibly can with the guidance that we have. What that looks like, I don’t think anybody knows yet.
“Just to have that opportunity is a big deal,” he said. “There will be a new plan coming up for opening our season. We’ll do it all just so we give these kids an experience.”