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Iola-Scandinavia sets spectator limits

COVID-19 concerns means fewer fans for sports

By Greg Seubert


There was a time not too long ago in which high school sports fans could take in a football game, volleyball match or cross country meet to support their favorite team.

Thanks to COVID-19, however, those days are over, at least for now.

The Iola-Scandinavia School Board is the latest to take action on limiting fan attendance at fall sporting events.

The board met Sept. 14 and approved District Administrator Ray Przekurat’s recommendation to restrict attendance at Iola-Scandinavia’s fall sports, including football and volleyball.

Iola-Scandinavia is a member of the Central Wisconsin Conference. The CWC includes 21 schools, including Weyauwega-Fremont, Manawa, Marion, Amherst, Almond-Bancroft and Wild Rose.

Przekurat and other CWC district administrators initially approved a plan.

“We made a decision that we were going to go four and two: four spectators per competitor for outdoor events and two tickets for spectators for indoor events,” Przekurat said. “Those recommendations kind of spun off of WIAA recommendations.

“Within a week, one of the school boards said, ‘No, we’re not going to have any spectators from visiting teams,’” he said. “We met again, changed our vote and we ended up going to a local decision type of vote. That’s why we’re here tonight, to give you different options we could look at.”

Lotteries for student tickets

Przekurat came up with the recommendation to bring to the board after working with athletic director Dave Jueds and middle school/high school principal Chris Nelson.

“We’ve had countless meetings with the WIAA, the Central Wisconsin Conference and our health department to come up with some of the decisions that we’re looking at,” he said. “We’re looking at four tickets for outside events for competitors and also four for coaches and doing a lottery for 50 tickets for our students. For indoor events, we would look at two tickets for players and for coaches and a lottery for 25 students.

“This is a fairly middle-of-the-road recommendation,” he added. “There are lot of local schools that are not allowing any visitors. We thought we would want to invite them. There are also a lot of school districts that made the ruling that, ‘If you don’t allow our visitors, we’re not allowing you into our facility.’”

Przekurat said the district could consider adding more fans down the road.

“If the numbers start going down and we figure out that we have a lot more room and we could space people out, then we’d open it up more,” he said.

“I think the ideal situation is that we protect our student-athletes and the community so that whatever season we start, we can finish healthy,” Nelson said. “I think that has to be a priority. We want to do what we can so students can start the season, end the season and have a full season as scheduled. Whatever we can do to protect them, we should be doing it.”

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