Under the recently approved Return to Play by the IHSA, coaches and student-athletes are able to begin workouts with no sport specific activities. Along with overseeing fitness techniques, coaches are to monitor the athletes’ symptoms, says Abingdon-Avon Head Football Coach Rick Quinn:
“All these symptoms that you are checking that could be COVID possible, like vomiting, and things like that, sometimes when you do fitness, some kids will vomit over the years. Its’ not even like you are trying to make them do it, it just happens sometimes, just depending on not eating or eating something wrong. That is one of the symptoms, so if you check that, then they are gone for 24 hours according to the guidelines. Luckily we are doing it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so if somebody has a temperature, they are just out Tuesday and should be back Wednesday as long as they are symptom free. It is a lot to be responsible for,” Quinn reports.
Coaches are to maintain a daily record of all athletes’ symptoms participating in the workouts.
Looking ahead into Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois Plan, there are no specifics regarding whether high school football and other fall sports being played come August. Circling all the unknowns, Quinn states his colleagues are split on the matter:
“In all honesty, there are some that don’t foresee it happening and some that have hope, I guess you would say, that we are going to get back to some normalcy. With Governor Pritzker cancelling the state fair in the middle of August, I don’t know if two weeks later, he’s going to say you are able to play football. There are some bigger communities that draw some big crowds and I don’t know if they will be okay with that size crowds. On top of that, I don’t know if they will say the Southern part of the state is okay to play, but you big suburbs because you draw larger crowds, you can play with nobody in the stands. There are a lot of questions unfortunately and I think there are a lot of unknowns,” Quinn says
Quinn is expecting around 30 on the Tornadoes roster this fall.
