As soon as superintendent of public instruction Jennifer McCormick announced Thursday afternoon that she was extending the e-learning phase for Indiana schools through the end of the academic year, spring sports athletes, coaches, parents and fans began bracing for the worst.
Not much more than an hour later, the hammer came down from the IHSAA. The state’s high school sports governing body announced there would be no championships in spring sports this year.
“Really, I just thought about, I won’t ever have a senior night, I won’t have a senior walk-up song, I won’t ever put on a Columbus North uniform again,” North senior baseball player Adam Chapman said. “It’s weird. It just hasn’t set in yet.”
Bartholomew County schools already had been shut down since before spring break, and Gov. Eric Holcomb had ordered all Indiana school buildings closed until at least May 1 because of the coronavirus pandemic. BCSC schools were scheduled to reopen May 4, but now, students will continue with e-learning the rest of the school year.
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“You had about 5 percent hope that something maybe, but deep down, we all knew it was coming,” Columbus East athletics director Pete Huse said. “I think as athletic directors, since we had all of April, and a lot of us were on spring break the last couple weeks, in my mind, we were, ‘Let’s see if the spread stops. Let’s see if it gets contained.’ The discussion was more, ‘How can we help our coaches? How can we be there for our athletes now in this time of uncertainty?’”
East and North had rescheduled their baseball and softball matchups with each other for May 9. Conference Indiana had scheduled conference tournaments for all spring sports, and North was to host the baseball and softball tourneys on May 16.
But now, those are off, along with the rest of the spring sports calendar.
“All along, we were trying to be as optimistic as possible,” North athletics director Jeff Hester said. “That’s why we kept working with other ADs on rescheduling. Bottom line, I just feel devastated for the seniors and their families who waited for this time to come, and now that that time is not going to come. I feel bad for those kids.”
East senior softball player Mady Foster was looking forward to playing with her teammates, including her freshman sister Kenzie, this spring. Mady Foster is planning to resume her career at Marian University next year.
“It makes it a little easier, but I definitely wish I would have gotten a final year to play at East for sure,” Mady Foster said. “I think especially this offseason, we worked hard to ratchet up all of our winter workouts and conditioning. Whether we were indoor or outdoor, we were working hard to have a good season, and it stinks that we won’t be able to see what we could have done.”
Hauser senior baseball player Trey Johnson, a Purdue-Northwest recruit, felt the same way.
“The news is pretty depressing,” Johnson said. “I was especially looking forward to the season, not only being a senior but because we had a great group of guys this year. But we have to take caution because it’s a pretty serious virus, and we don’t want anybody getting infected.”
Seniors weren’t the only athletes affected by Thursday’s news. North sophomore Tucker Smith was a state title contender in the shot put after finishing second as a freshman at last year’s Boys Track and Field State Finals.
“As soon as they started canceling school, I was pretty sure sports were going to be canceled,” Smith said. “I’m pretty bummed about it. I worked pretty hard for it.”
East softball coach Rusty Brummett was an assistant basketball coach when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks took place. Like the coronavirus pandemic, 9/11 was something that Americans had never lived through before, he said.
“But 9/11 was kind of a finite thing where you could say things would get back to normal at some point,” Brummett said. “For the health of student-athletes and their families, (canceling the spring sports season is) the right move to make. It stinks that we’re going to lose a season of softball, but it’s the right decision to make as painful as it is. Sports is a piece of normalcy for kids, and they’re not going to get that this spring.”
After returning all but one player from last year’s softball sectional champions and adding several promising freshmen, North was hoping for a big year this spring. Seniors Sierra Norman and Brooke Bruin had been leading the team throughout the offseason.
“I feel bad for all the girls, but I feel especially terrible for our seniors,” North softball coach Ron McDonald said. “The girls worked so hard in the offseason. A lot of them are crying. It’s a sad day. We think we could have made a good run this year and been a strong contender for the regional. We were so ready for this year, but we’ll be ready the next year and hopefully for years after that.”
The East and North baseball teams were hit especially hard by news of the cancelations. The Olympians, which were the Class 4A state runner-up last season, were ranked No. 3 in the coaches’ preseason poll, while the Bull Dogs were ranked No. 7.
“It’s so hard for all the players that have worked so hard all offseason, and nothing is there then,” East baseball coach Jon Gratz said. “Especially the seniors being great leaders this offseason and having a last year of high school baseball, I can’t really put myself in their shoes. It’s just really tough for those kids who put in all that time and effort and have nothing to show for it. But there’s more important things going on in the world right now, as we all can see, and baseball is just a small part of it. We have to keep things in perspective as best we can.”
North, meanwhile, returned 14 players from last year’s sectional roster, including 11 juniors or seniors, and all eight position players. They returned 239 of their 250 hits and 133 innings on the mound.
“You don’t get a lot of that experience anymore,” North baseball coach Ben McDaniel said. “This junior and senior class were special, and it’s heartbreaking for all of them. I really believe this would have been one of my best teams, if not my best team, that we would have put on the field.”
But McDaniel was most disappointed for his four seniors.
“I can’t fathom what they’re going through,” McDaniel said. “You always say you never know when it’s going to be your last game, but to me, this is worse than a season-ending injury because at least with a season-ending injury, you get to go through the rest of the season with your team. I’m heartbroken for all four of them.”
Besides baseball, softball and boys and girls track, the other spring sports affected are boys golf, girls tennis and Unified track. North’s girls tennis team had advanced to state last years, and coach Kendal Hammel felt the Bull Dogs could make another deep run this season.
“It’s unfortunate,” Hammel said. “We would have had a very good team, perhaps even stronger than last year. With the seniors we had and the younger girls, we felt we would have been able to compete overall in the state.”
