New challenge of high school football practice in North Carolina? Staying 6 feet apart
For Providence Day football players, it won’t be a catchy pop song that gets stuck in their head this summer. It’ll be the roar of their coach shouting two simple words.
“Six feet!”
Monday night in Charlotte, football was finally back. Private schools were allowed practice for the first time since the pandemic brought high school athletics to a halt, and the scene at Providence Day was similar to a normal early season workout.
No pads. Temperatures in the high 80s. Individual instruction without collision.
Except that constant reminder that this wasn’t a normal practice.
“Keep our distance!” coaches shouted at every infraction.
For first-year Chargers head coach Chad Grier, that’s the biggest challenge in the age of coronavirus -- staying hands-off with his new team.
“The power of touch is real,” Grier said. “Putting your hand on their shoulder and saying I care about you -- they feel that more than me just saying I care about you.”
Social distancing and health guidelines set by the NCISAA were at the forefront.
Each of the roughly 40 high schoolers stood 6 feet apart while they participated in group workouts -- stretching, jumping and jogging. Quarterbacks threw sanitized footballs into nets. Receivers, most wearing their own gloves, ran short routes and caught balls thrown by their position coach. Running backs worked with step hurdles. Linebackers learned the two-point stance. Kickers sent balls through the goalposts.
“It wasn’t a competition with other schools,” Providence Day athletic director Nancy Beatty said. “It was a competition of us getting our kids back on campus and being somewhat back to normal.”
Beatty said football workouts, which will be held five days a week at Providence Day, are not mandatory, and they are focused on helping high school athletes retain some level of normalcy amid the pandemic.
It’s contact-free football. There aren’t any high fives, fist bumps or pats on the back. Sanitation tables, with hand sanitizer, cloth masks and surgical gloves, line the sidelines. Water bottles — players must bring their own — are not to be shared.
“When you look around the state, it’s a privilege to be out here,” Grier said. “We want to honor and respect it, so we’re not going to do anything at all to jeopardize (it).”
The new reality for high school athletics was clear from the first step onto Providence Day’s campus. As players, most already wearing masks, walked up to turn in physicals and paperwork, they were also screened for COVID-19.
“Welcome back, your hair has grown out,” an athletic trainer said to a returning athlete at check-in. “Do you have a cough? Sore throat?”
Grier, a Charlotte native and father of Panthers quarterback Will Grier, stood at the front of the line before practice and greeted the players as they arrived to the field. After being hired in March and holding virtual chats with the team in April, Monday was the first time he saw them in person.
Even if practice was a little unique, Grier was just happy to not be talking to people over Zoom for a change.
He’s back in North Carolina after a three-year stint at Oceanside Collegiate Academy in Mount Pleasant, S.C., where he led the team to a 23-11 record. Before then, he coached at Davidson Day, winning four state championships in six seasons.
Grier said the modified workouts make progress slower than usual, and it’s a challenge he expects all teams to face this year.
“Just being able to come out and coach ball tonight was just wonderful,” Grier said. “I don’t want to complain about it not being perfect. It was perfect to be on the field with the guys.”
With private schools back on the field, public schools will soon return with similar guidelines.
The NCHSAA will allow its member schools to begin athletic activities as early as June 15, but Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools told the Observer on Monday that they will not allow their schools to begin summer activities until July 6.