With Wyoming moving forward with fall high school sports in a pandemic some sacrifices and extra effort are needed to make the season work.

Every sport at the two Gillette comprehensive high schools are feeling the effects, some more acutely than others.

Before practices began, or even had the go-ahead, school activities directors faced the daunting task of a new schedule together. The schedules that were decided last year simply weren’t an option after the Wyoming High School Activities Association announced its long list of COVID-19 health guidelines.

No overnight invitationals for volleyball, no more than 112 runners at cross-country meets and only four teams allowed at golf or swimming and diving events are just a few of the changes. Others include discouraging out-of-state travel for games and tournaments, along with hosting teams from outside Wyoming.

For the local activities directors, Thunder Basin High School’s Mike DeLancey and Campbell County’s Zach Schmidt, it’s been quite a way to begin their first years on their new jobs. But with good teams behind them, they said it’s been manageable.

“The best thing I can highlight is everyone has really come together as a team, whether it’s our activities office … or coaches or administration,” said Schmidt, who was previously the AD at Saratoga High School. “I’ve been really impressed. Let’s get kids in activities and do it the right way.”

Football is one of the few sports that didn’t see an overhaul of its schedule. But because of the size of rosters (limited to 50) and the contact nature of the sport, it has probably seen more changes than any other sport.

Some of the restrictions have been manageable. Football coaches at Thunder Basin have been seen wearing face masks for most practices and always have them on when talking in a huddle or showing a play on the clipboard.

While the WHSAA “strongly encourages” rather than requires masks be worn before and after practices, it’s something TBHS coach Trent Pikula and his team are taking seriously.

“We’ve talked numerous times now with the kids about how fragile this season is,” Pikula said. “If we don’t follow the protocols, both coaches and players, and we get an outbreak our season is shut down.

“If our helmet is off, our mask is on. We mask up in the locker room, we mask up on the way to the locker room. It’s just been a huge priority for us to make sure we’re following exactly what we’re supposed to do.”

While that may be a necessary nuisance, other WHSAA guidelines like teams “should maintain the recommended 6 feet of distancing between players” during practice have been the hardest to follow, Pikula said.

Anytime the Bolts take a water break, the freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors all report to different parts of the field. At first, Pikula said the staff were telling kids to wear masks when they couldn’t distance, but now the rule is “you have to have your mask on or put your helmet on.”

Changes everywhere

Wearing masks before and after events is a uniform suggestion across all programs, but it’ll be tougher to expect in some sports than others.

For cross-country, TBHS coach Terri Hinkel said the WHSAA has asked runners to put on a mask immediately after crossing the finish line. After running 3 miles, oxygen is at a premium and masks won’t help runners get the air they need.

During the TBHS cross-country parent meeting, Hinkel said she hopes there will be a cool-off area athletes can walk through before putting a mask on. Otherwise, she said it’ll quickly become apparent that a face covering immediately after a race is an unrealistic expectation.

For other outdoor sports like golf, players either have to go straight to their bus after a round or have their faces covered if they want to hang around the clubhouse. But one of the most challenging restrictions for golfers will be pre-round activities.

Apart from the casual weekend golfer, nobody wants their first swing of the day to be on the No. 1 tee box to start competition. But that will be the new reality for high school golfers across Wyoming this year.

In typical seasons, CCHS coach Bryan Young said golfers would get about 45 minutes to prepare and warm up at the driving range, chipping green and putting green. But to eliminate areas that every team in the tournament would congregate at, the warm-up facilities at courses won’t be available.

“I think it’s crazy. It makes sense, because they don’t want us to spread COVID, but it’s just insane,” TBHS junior Darby Barstad said. “Putting is my biggest thing, because it’s really hard at different courses to figure out the speeds of the greens.”

Smaller competitions

A few of the big changes to golf and girls swimming and diving came at the WHSAA’s rescheduling meeting Aug. 3. It was decided that no more than four high school teams or 80 participants would be allowed at meets and tournaments, which caused scheduling wrinkles across the state.

While it wasn’t an issue for meets scheduled in Gillette, one of the issues could be a possible shortage of officials, CCHS swimming and diving coach Phil Rehard said. With many eight- to 10-team meets being cut in half or more, the demand for officials may double.

However, the largest effect on the Camels is not seeing some of the state’s best swimmers or teams throughout the season. Rehard said the Camels compete against defending state champ Laramie and the Cheyenne schools this year, but not nearly as much as usual.

CCHS also won’t see teams from the far corners of the state, like Green River, Rock Springs and Evanston, until the state meet.

The meets also will have a different feel for swimmers and divers. No handshakes or fist bumps with competitors is one small adjustment. They’ll also have to go without some of the comforting aspects that weren’t considered when social distancing wasn’t a concern.

At big races, it’s common to see teams grouped together to cheer at the end of a teammate’s lane, but that won’t be allowed this season. Swimmers would only see or hear them when they pop out of the water for air, but the wild cheers were enough to spark some extra energy during big moments.

“I think it’s definitely going to be different because that’s just part of the sport,” CCHS junior Berkeley Christensen said. “It’s just kind of what you do. You always go down there and cheer for your teammates, especially at big races. It’s nice to have those people and your teammates there to support you.”

Early adjustments

Tennis, much like golf, is one of the sports that naturally lends itself to some sort of social distancing. But the players still have to deal with change at every dual and practice.

No players were wearing masks during their season-opening matches Aug. 15, but plenty put them on once their matches were over. As for coaches, both CCHS coach Mark Miessler and TBHS coach Paul Stevens were masked up the whole time.

The WHSAA wants tennis teams to practice in “pods,” which would potentially help with contact tracing if a player tests positive for the coronavirus.

At TBHS, Stevens and his staff took on extra working hours to make that a little more feasible. Instead of trying to distance 28 players in one practice, he split practices into two sessions for the first week.

During two-a-days, that meant coaches ran two practices in the morning and then two more in the afternoon. But Stevens said it’s worth the extra effort, and he has even seen some added benefits.

“It just gives kids more time on the court and more time hitting tennis balls,” Stevens said. “Rather than having 28 kids on five courts, we have 13 and 15. It helps us to have one more safeguard in there to hopefully keep the kids healthy and keep our season going. Not just for us, but for all the fall sports.”

Some of the changes to the season, like fans in the stands, were decided by state and local health departments. It was a big question mark for weeks following the WHSAA’s announcement to move forward with fall sports, but now fans have enough information to make game day plans.

Gov. Mark Gordon loosening the limit for outdoor gatherings from 250 to 1,000 or no more than 50% of a venue’s capacity gives CCHS and TBHS some wiggle room to have fans at their events. Both schools plan to follow those orders, which DeLancey called “workable.”

The average attendance at TBHS games last year was right around 1,000 for football and about 186 for volleyball. Both of those numbers would work under the state guidelines, which DeLancey said is a best-case scenario.

Athletes and coaches are ecstatic to be back with the teams they love. But Hinkel said it best during the cross-country parent meeting: “This is going to look different than any other season we’ve ever had.”