Fall sports season in Brown County has been canceled for non-school youth sports, but Brown County Schools’ sports season is continuing to move forward with practices and scheduled competitions.

The Brown County Parks and Recreation Board voted on July 23 to cancel the 2020 youth soccer season due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, while the Brown County Bantam Football League recently decided to cancel its 2020 season due to lack of participation and the uncertainty surrounding the virus.

“There is just way too much up in the air right now,” said Joel Lewis, director of Brown County Bantam. “You can’t tackle from six feet away.”

However, Brown County High School is still moving ahead on its 2020 seasons for every fall sport, Athletic Director Mark Bruner said.

“We are very ready to get back up and going,” he said.

According to Bruner, every fall sports team at the high school has seen an increase in athletes signing up this year, and the football team has seen its highest growth in years. Official practices for the high school started on Aug. 3 and Bruner said that the No. 1 priority is student safety.

“We have been very cautious in developing a procedure for practices starting up,” he said. “All equipment is being wiped down thoroughly after every use and we are limiting the number of students allowed in certain areas.”

Despite taking precautions, Bruner said that are still some questions that have yet to be answered, especially regarding contact sports.

“If you tackle someone, obviously that is not social distancing,” he said.

This concern was a big reason why Brown County Bantam Football canceled its season, Lewis said.

Instead, Lewis and the other BC Bantam leaders have been working to develop a flag football program for Brown County kids who missed out on playing this year.

Lewis said participants would practice two times a week with other kindergarten through sixth-graders, and then play a scrimmage each week against each other, possibly before the high school football games. This program, Lewis said, would allow youth to learn football fundamentals while staying more socially distanced than regular football and keep them from interacting with kids from other cities who could be carrying the virus.

“This program would give us more control over the precautions we could take to protect our players and would limit interactions with kids from more high-risk areas such as Indianapolis,” Lewis said.

Bruner said that the high school has not had any issues scheduling competitions against schools from out of town and that so far, no adjustments have been made to any team’s schedule.

“We haven’t had to make any changes yet and that is exciting because our athletes are ready to get back out there,” he said.

According to Bruner, the only issue facing high school athletics right now is that of spectator size at games. Gov. Eric Holcomb’s most recent updates to Indiana’s reopening plan currently limit all non-essential gatherings to less than 250 people, and Bruner said he has not received any guidance about whether or not that would include athletes and coaches.

“If it turns out that our athletes and school staff are included in that 250 people for, let’s say, a football game, then that lessens our number of fans by around 80 people,” he said.

In addition to how many fans to allow, Bruner said the athletic department is currently debating ways to determine who can enter as well. He has been meeting with other athletic directors around the state, and a few different suggestions have been made. Among them are:

• operating first-come, first-served with tickets with a hard cap on how many can enter;
• only allowing each player to have one person be their designated fan or attendee; or
• strictly allowing only parents of athletes to attend without allowing students to come.

Bruner said that while making these decisions, Brown County Schools’ district nurse has been in contact with the Indiana State Department of Health to ensure the athletic department’s decisions are safe and recommended, but that he hasn’t directly spoken with anyone from ISDH.

However, he said a meeting is scheduled between himself and the ISDH soon to determine if practices can continue.

When asked if contact sports like football would continue to practice with full contact, Bruner said that they would until he hears otherwise.

“That’s the golden question,” he said.

Student-athletes and coaches are all encouraged to wear masks while practicing, but Bruner said sometimes students will have to take them off in order to protect themselves.

“We don’t want someone to pass out while they’re running or conditioning because they’re not getting enough oxygen from wearing a mask,” he said. “Right now, we are just following the state guidelines until further notice.”