Hop on a bus and travel to the destination. It’s how high school athletes have arrived at sporting events for years. And it’s something that was easy to take for granted.
Not anymore, now that restrictions tied to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a mandate to appear in IHSA fall sports guidelines: “For transportation to events, schools must consider social distancing requirements when scheduling contests and events for the fall. Social distancing ... will need to be maintained on buses/vans. Thus, multiple buses/vans and/or parental/guardian transportation could likely be needed.”
Quick translation: Just one bus isn’t going to cut it for many area programs.
Urbana’s fall teams largely reside in that category, the result of being a school with more than 1,000 students. So athletic director Steve Waller needed to find some workarounds for his athletes’ travel.
The answer in golf and cross-country was “as much of a local schedule as we can do.”
“We will rely on kids getting themselves to certain events as far as local events — in Champaign-Urbana and close neighboring communities,” Waller said. “We believe that families probably would feel safer transporting their own kid than loading up on a school bus.”
Girls’ tennis and girls’ swimming and diving are being looked at in a slightly different light. Waller said his tennis team has a bit wider scope of travel on its schedule but added the expected roster size should make it easier to move kids around.
As for swim and dive, Waller said Urbana and other Big 12 Conference schools with a team are conducting a strict league-only schedule, caused by the state’s gathering of 50 rule, which makes a conference meet untenable. For that team, Waller is considering a “travel roster” that would allow a select number of athletes to make the trips to Peoria and Bloomington-Normal, in order to maintain social distance among kids and cut down on the number of buses required.
Colin Likas
"occur" - Google News
August 16, 2020 at 09:00PM
https://ift.tt/3g2Ewh9
One big question: What changes are occurring to teams' travel to and from events? - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette
"occur" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2UoDqVw
https://ift.tt/2Wq6qvt
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "One big question: What changes are occurring to teams' travel to and from events? - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette"
Post a Comment