Tom Dodge
Area football teams hit the practice fields this week for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic stopped spring sports on March 16.
Eunice High trainer Kyle Vincent said the football team is following the state’s guidelines with social distancing.
Vincent said EHS is using St. Landry Parish School Board’s Phase One rules with each coach manning a station of nine players.
“We are required to do a daily temperature check of every kid,” he said. “They have to sign a COVID form.
“The parents have to sign the form saying that they haven’t been around any one with the virus.”
Vincent said the players rotate from coach to coach and do different workout plans across the athletic complex.
“We can’t use the weight room so we brought it outside,” he said. “As each player leaves their station they have to clean the weights for the next group coming over.
Vincent said each player has to provide his own hydration – a gallon jug with their name on it.
“We will increase it gradually,” he said of the workouts. “In three weeks we can go up to groups of 25.
“We are taking it slow because a lot of the kids are deconditioned because of the three months off due to COVID,” he said.
Vincent said within two weeks the base conditioning should return and the players should be back to normal.”
While the St. Landry Parish public school teams are operating in Phase One, St. Edmund has moved on to the next step, according to athletic director James Shiver.
“When they first walk into the gym lobby we take their temperature and they complete the questionnaire,” he said. “If one of the players has 100.3 temperature, or higher, we have to send them home as well as anyone who rode with them. They can’t come back for 14 days.”
Shiver said his team is divide into groups with juniors and sophomores together and the seniors and freshmen together.
“We practice social distancing as we rotate from station to station staying within the limit of 25 people.”
Shiver said when they use the weight room each group has to wipe everything down before the next group can come in.
“We are doing weights, a boxes and dots section for plyometrics as well as a conditioning session in the old gym,” the coach said.
Shiver said he is looking forward to moving the team back on the practice field as they participate in seven-on-seven competition.
“The tournaments are starting up in July,” he said. “We will hold one on July 17 so it will be good to hit the field again.
“We are usually gearing down in July to get ready for the August workouts,” he said. “We are slowly progressing in June, hit it hard in July and move into preseason mode in August.”
The St. Edmund baseball team will return to action Monday as the Blue Jays entertain Opelousas Catholic.
The junior varsity will play at 4 p.m. followed by a varsity contest at 6 p.m.
The Blue Jays will also face Kinder, Sacred Heart of Ville Platte and Notre Dame over the next few weeks with games on Mondays and Wednesdays.
The St. Edmund Lady Jays is expected to return to the softball field in the next two weeks but a schedule has not been finalized.
According to Shiver, the concession stands will only sell pre-packaged items such as bottled drinks, candy and chips – no cooked items such as hamburgers, fries or nachos.
The coach said there will be social distancing in the stands will be marked to keep the fans will six feet apart.
“We want to see all our teams return to play as soon as possible,” Shiver said.