BOONE, Iowa — Iowa just wrapped up a baseball and softball season, many consider a success, and now the hope is football can follow suit. But we’re talking a contact sport with bigger teams. But the IHSAA is confident they can pull it off.
FULL INTERVIEW W/ IHSAA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TOM KEATING
IHSAA Executive Director, Tom Keating, couldn’t help but be pleased with what he saw as state baseball went off without a hitch at Principal Park last week.
"It shows that folks were committed to doing what they needed to do in order to be able to have us run the season, you know, in particular, our AD's, our coaches, our players, they knew what was at stake and they did everything they could to make it happen."
So with guidelines that mirror many of the same things baseball had to go through in order for a season to happen. He's confident fall sports can keep it rolling.
"We follow the protocols and we do what's needed to be done. I think we keep everybody safe within those lines, and you know football is a different thing we know it."
But it doesn't come without some concerns.
"The biggest concern is the line, so there's five to six seconds of interaction at the line, you know, during a play and we need to figure out, you know, how do we how do we control things within that time frame in that in that area that's, that's the biggest challenge. It doesn't mean we don't address the other areas we do, but that's the biggest area."
New for football is more uniformity for the course of action should a team have a positive COVID-19 case. It no longer goes by individual county guidelines.
"The Iowa Department of Public Health has given the schools matrices, on how to deal with cases and in what situations so I think you're gonna see a lot more consistency."
The other aspect of fall sports staying on schedule and Iowa and influx of out of state players making the move to the Hawkeye State to get their season in something Keating says the association deals with every year.
"You know, not for COVID certainly, so the reason has changed, but every year we have families that move into Iowa and establish residency because of a job or something else. And so we have things in place for that so if they move and they, they become bona fide residents of the district, they're eligible"
There will be challenges, many won't show up until practices get going, but Keating and the association think the high school season can make it to the finish at the UNI Dome in November.
"Let's plan as best we can and then as things come our way and we have to shift gears and we've got to change a little bit. Then we will we've been adjusting on the fly a little bit all all years since spring and, and we'll have to do that as well. we just have a good problem solvers."