Remember six years ago, when the sports world did previously unthinkable things to keep playing?
Empty gyms and arenas for basketball games. Heck, the NBA played a short season in a quarantined bubble in Orlando.
No galleries at major golf tournaments.
MLB played a shortened season with neutral sites for the playoffs and World Series (of course, the Dodgers won).
High school sports found ways to make it work, too. New Orleans was a pandemic hotspot, so Northwestern State provided Turpin Stadium and the LHSAA pivoted to present the best possible experience for teams that included Byrd and Calvary.
Regular season games were scheduled with very short notice. Opponents had too many positive COVID tests? Adjust. They went off fine. The idea was to overcome obstacles and let the players play. There were bold steps taken to make that happen.
We saw it could. Now, we’re seeing that unselfish approach didn’t stick around, at least not at some high schools within driving distance of Shreveport.
Loyola’s homecoming football game next Friday was collateral damage last week when the LHSAA rightfully suspended Carroll’s football team for the season after some Bulldogs brawled with fans in Napoleonville after a loss at Assumption High on Sept. 25. Wednesday, having given Carroll a three-hour hearing in the appeals process, the LHSAA stood firm.
Carroll’s season is toast. Loyola has no opponent on Oct. 16.
There are teams who have open dates then. The Flyers’ Hoco is right now, a NoGo. So far, nobody is willing to change plans and come to Messmer Stadium to play a football game.
Some coaches have used the excuse that it’s fall break for their schools, and families and coaches already have plans for that weekend.
Bless their hearts. The boys on those teams started working in January’s offseason programs and went through summer workouts and a month of preseason practice to play this season. They thought they would only get to play nine games, not the full 10.
You’re telling me there’s not kids out there who wouldn’t jump at the chance to add a game?
Actually, what this tells me is that there are coaches and other adults who don’t care enough to adjust on the fly – yes, to help out another school, but also, to give their own players the chance to tee it up under the Friday night lights an extra time.
What this tells me is that spending next Friday at the house, or on the lake, or in the woods, or wherever else is more important to these supposed leaders than what they, too, have spent all year working toward.
I think about these schools whose coaches are unwilling to take this opportunity, and it makes me even more proud of the coaches and players at Plain Dealing and Magnolia School of Excellence.
The win-starved Lions and Mariners keep plugging away, giving it everything they’ve got, against all odds, week after week. They crave celebrating postgame for the first time in what feels like forever, hoping the next game might finally be their night.
I guarantee if either coach, Jerry Byrd at Plain Dealing or Magnolia’s Kelly Yancey, was suddenly faced with an open date, they’d be scrambling like Loyola’s John Sella and his staff have been to fill it.
They know, perhaps better than any of their peers, how precious each game is.
So, Coach Sorry, We Can’t Play, yes, you can. If your heart is in the right place, if you’re doing this for the right reasons, sure you can.
Not for Loyola. No, it’s for those young men who have looked up to you all year long.
It’s them you’re letting down for not stepping up.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com