‘A little bit of normalcy’: High school sports tiptoe back in

WINDOW ROCK

With the rampant vaccinations taking place we can all sense that things are starting to get better.

The hope is for us to return to some normalcy as this nasty virus has affected all of our lives.

For the past few weeks, businesses in New Mexico have started opening up with limited capacity. The local prep sports scene is also seeing a glimpse of that with McKinley County going from red to green status in the state’s county-to-county color code system.

With COVID-19 positivity rates going down, parents are now able to watch their kids participate in their athletic activities with schools allowing up to 50% capacity for outdoor events and 25% for indoor events.

Those are welcome signs for New Mexico as we recently passed the one-year anniversary of when this virus disrupted our lives.

The first case was reported on March 11 last spring during the New Mexico state basketball playoffs.

The first couple of rounds went on without a hitch but following that Wednesday’s slate of games the New Mexico Activities Association made the decision to ban fans for the remainder of the tournament.

The decision to ban fans was a result of four residents in neighboring counties from Albuquerque testing positive for the novel coronavirus. That morning on March 11, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a public health emergency.

Upon hearing news that the state tournament was going to go on without fans a number of area coaches were disheartened that the NMAA was forced to make this decision.

“This is a very big event for the state and a lot of people were looking forward to it,” Kirtland Central girls’ basketball coach Devon Manning told the Navajo Times. “It’s just unfortunate this has to happen but sometimes it’s better to be overcautious than under-cautious.”

And although he was disappointed, then-Newcomb coach Dominique Richardson said he respected the NMAA’s decision.

“It’s all in the name of safety and health for everybody in the state,” he said. “It was a hard decision for them to make but I understand why they had to do it.”

For the first two days of the state playoffs, the venues at the Santa Ana Star Arena and Dreamstyle Arena on the University of New Mexico campus had thousands of fans but on the final three days there was an eerie silence at both arenas.

Instead of having roaring fans to give teams motivation to play, the schools that made the state semifinals had to create their own energy.

Gallup boys’ basketball coach Joshua Dunlap said having to do that was unprecedented, especially with the following they usually get from their staunch supporters.

“That’s one of our biggest advantages,” Dunlap said of Gallup fans packing the Pit. “We were expecting to have ten thousand people there.”

Prior to their semifinal match with Highland High, the Gallup coach said he had received a text from Hornet coach Justin Woody about his team preparing for that big game.

“They had been practicing with music blaring all week because they were getting ready for (the crowd),” he said.

And while the New Mexico state basketball playoffs did get to finish with no fanfare, the virus was lurking.

The weeks following the playoffs there was an uptick in new positive tests. The high school spring sports season was canceled in both New Mexico and Arizona.

In addition to prep sports, a number of iconic events were pulled, such as the Shiprock Marathon, the Ty Murray Invitational, the Wild Thing Bull Riding and the Indian National Finals Rodeo.
All of the tribal fairs were also canceled.

As we got into the summer, the pandemic continued to have a ripple effect with prep sports as some Arizona school districts opted out of having a fall season, including all schools on the Navajo Nation.

Due to the uptick of COVID-19 cases in late summer, the New Mexico governor suspended all high school sports.

Despite having prep sports shelved, the NMAA stayed positive as it came up with contingency plans to ensure that its student-athletes would be able to play this season.

“Interscholastic athletics are an important part of the overall educational process,” Sally Marquez, the NMAA executive director said in a statement last fall. “The NMAA will work tirelessly to ensure students have the opportunity to participate in all sports and activities of their choosing during the 2020-2021 school year.”

Those plans were finally put into place last month as schools began to get back on the playing field.

Miyamura volleyball coach Sarah Mortensen said it best when she offered these comments about the up-and-down road to high school sports:

“It’s exciting to have high school sports again but there were concerns that we wouldn’t have a season,” she said. “The kids were kind of tiptoeing around wondering if the rug was going to be yanked out from underneath them.

“I don’t fault them for feeling that way but it’s nice to be back in the gym,” she added. “It’s nice to find a little bit of normalcy in our lives.”

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