As executive director of the Indiana Football Coaches Association, Bob Gaddis has had a first-hand look at how other states are handling the return to in-person workouts.
The veteran Columbus East coach has been in Zoom meetings with leaders from seven or eight states on Wednesday and eight more states on Thursday. He said he has met with leaders from 42 of the other 49 states since COVID-19 led to the closure of schools across the nation.
“As a coaches association, we want to make sure we put the health and the safety and the well being of the student-athlete first,” Gaddis said. “If we try to jump in and do too much too quick, we might have some negative results. So we want to go in slowly and monitor the kids’ progress. There’s going to be all kinds of parameters for kids to follow. We want to make sure we follow the rules very closely to give our kids a chance to have a season.”
In Indiana, all school facilities remain closed through June 30, so conditioning won’t be able to start until July 1. Gaddis said most of the states he’s talked with are scheduled to return in mid-June.
Ohio began allowing teams to practice a couple weeks ago, so Gaddis will be in contact with leadership in that state to see how things are going.
Gaddis has been working with Robert Faulkens, the IHSAA assistant commissioner who administers football, on how things are going to work when they do return July 1. They plan to meet again on Tuesday.
“It’s all going to involve social distancing,” Gaddis said. “We know it’s going to start very close in line with the national federation guidelines. You’re going to be allowed smaller numbers in workout groups. You can have more people when you’re outside and less people when you’re inside, and when you’re inside, there’s probably going to be a mask requirement. Some states have a mask requirement for all coaches.”
Some of the other recommendations will include providing players with opportunities to wash their hands and use hand sanitizer. Players likely will have their temperature taken before practice each day and will have to answer questions such has whether they have been sick in past 24 hours or been around anyone with the COVID-19 virus.
Gaddis said he hopes everyone adheres to the guidelines so that there isn’t a spike in COVID-19 cases before the season starts August 21.
“What the medical experts are going to do is look at how we progress through the phases in the document,” Gaddis said. “The plan that we’ve talked about with the IHSAA is putting the safety first to make sure we have a season. We’re going to do everything we can to make them safe, and then move into competitions.”
