Each week, it seems like some high school football team, or multiple teams, in South Dakota are having to postpone their game due to positive cases of COVID-19. While it’s important to recognize that this is likely going to be a continued hurdle for the remainder of the season, it’s also important to hear from the schools who have went through it.
Estelline/Hendricks was the first high school football team in South Dakota to postpone a game, because of the pandemic. The Redhawks postponement came right before the first game of the season.
“It's been so many unknowns since March, basically. The summer rolls around, and are we going to have a football season? Are we going to have a volleyball season? There's just such highs and lows with that. We find out, okay, we're going to go ahead with football, and everybody's excited and we get going. We get a week in, and boom, COVID,” said Estelline/Hendricks head football coach and Estelline activities director Jeremy Bachman.
The Argus Leader in Sioux Falls reported that two players on the Redhawks squad had tested positive. Due to close exposure, the entire roster, all seventeen players, was asked to self quarantine.
“We just didn't expect it was going to hit us week one. You go from that high of being able to play football and then the whole team's quarantined,” stated Bachman.
The positive COVID-19 case forced Estelline/Henricks to postpone their opening season game against Dell Rapids St. Mary.
“We had six days in of practice, so we had a good base down. My biggest fear was not so much losing the plays and stuff, because that's stuff we've been doing for years as I've been coaching, and kids’ kind of know that system,” Bachman explained. “It was the staying in shape. I can't go to each kid's house and say, "All right, you got to do some running." It's up to them.”
Football is a sport that requires motivation. And when high school student athletes are involved, self-motivation isn’t always a guarantee.
“You just got to keep the kids' spirits up, say, "This isn't the end of the season. We got to stay healthy and get back after it." I told the kids at the beginning of the year, "We have to stay healthy, coaches included, managers, everybody, because the football, volleyball, all these seasons, they're going to proceed with or without the Redhawks." And some other schools are figuring that out too,” Bachman said.
When South Dakota first started seeing an increase in positive numbers from the pandemic, it was the more populous counties being affected the most. Fast forward to today and more and more rural counties are seeing their numbers rise, meaning, the virus is everywhere. It’s not so much a matter of ‘if,’ the virus hits a particular school or town, but a matter of ‘when.’
“Well, it's real. It's going to affect everybody. I keep saying for our football team, it got real, real fast for us. Everybody knows it's out there, but everybody doesn't think it's going to affect them. It's not going to happen. And then when it does, it's eye-opening for them,” Bachman explained. “And it's something that we're going to deal with, whether we like it or not, and it's something that we have to deal with and do it the right way.”
Jeremy Bachman joined SDPB’s podcast ‘In Play with Craig Mattick’ recently to talk about Estelline/Hendricks first-hand experience with the pandemic. To hear the full episode regarding fall sports and the pandemic, and to subscribe to the ‘In Play’ podcast, click here.
