JustRules

If they can't provide you with a social distancing option that's acceptable then I would suggest arriving dressed. There aren't many HS locker room I've been in where we couldn't spread out sufficiently.

I looked it up and found data for 2017. Warren was 73.2% F&R and Wayne was 73.6%. Decatur, Pike, and Lawrence were in the 60%, Washington was 55% and Franklin was 37%. Perry's information wasn't there for some reason. These were about what I expected. There are larger lower income pockets in Warren and Wayne. This doesn't show the higher extremes though. Franklin also struggles a little due to the lack of corporate taxes paid there. It is largely residential.

That's an interest stat. I would never have guessed Franklin Township is the most affluent. Are you basing it on free and reduced lunch percentages? If true it's only because they don't have as much of the lower extremes as the other districts. Washington and Lawrence definitely have the most affluent areas of Marion County, but they also have some of the poorest.

Both Lawrence Township and Washington Township and to a lesser extent Pike Township have a broad mix of students with a large number at both extremes. Lawrence has students from around Geist as well as students around 38th and Post, one of the poorest areas of the city. The northern part of Washington Township and the old money of Meridian Kessler that feeds into it are very affluent, but they also reach around Broad Ripple down to 46th and Emerson and 38th and Kessler. Wayne and Warren are very similar but with less of the affluence. Decatur is working middle class and Perry/Franklin both have a good mix but less extremes. IMHO they will all struggle at some level though with eLearning because a large percentage either have both parents working, a single parent, or financial limitations that make eLearning more difficult.

I agree with Bob. If there are games I expect there will be a fair number of cancellations. It could be a scramble rescheduling games and then finding officials. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Centralized assigning system put in place if that happened.

I would think the teacher to teacher spread would be easier to manage though. They will generally be in their own room most of the time. If they are in a group it could be smaller groups with everyone masked. That would make each instance more similar to what you would have in a retail establishment or grocery story. Teachers concerns are not without merit. Some of them though tare no different than other workers who are asked to go back to work in risky situations. I would hope schools could accommodate those who are more at risk (have them focus on the eLearning activities) and have those who are comfortable go back to the classroom. There is no easy answer here, and I wish everyone would respect other people's opinions.

They are the ones most likely at risk. That's understandable. There are a lot of studies out there, but the one I believe says students (especially elementary) are very unlikely to contract and/or spread the disease especially to adults. But there is still a risk between the adult staff.

Classes exist for post-season. It has not relevance for the regular season. Schedule who you want to play to provide your student athletes the best opportunity to participate and compete.

That's a completely separate discussion. I don't see a reason why the worst team in 3A has to be better than the best team in 2A. That's not true in NCAA football either. There are D3 teams that can beat D2 and FCS teams. There are D2 teams that can beat G5 and possibly the bottom of FBS. There are several FCS teams that can beat G5 and some P5 schools. NAIA generally falls between D2 and D3 and the same applies there. Enrollment is a good place to start with classification, because it's an easily measurable number and generally equates to likely ability. The Success Factor helps to provide some balance. Ultimately high school sports are about team building, leadership skills, physical activity, and education. Along the way they get to compete and try to win championships, but that's not the only goal.

I believe the charts are based on what was reported. I wish the reporters would have dug in deeper. My guess is these particular agencies mostly just reported positive cases and not just tests. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt to say it wasn't intentional. So if they reported 98% positive and 521 cases, but are now saying they only had a 9.4% positive rate, they probably mis-reported the total number tested. If that's true the case numbers are still accurate the percentage positive is off. The other possibility is the number tested accidentally also got fed to into the positive column. If that's true then the number of cases will be lower. There is a common term in data analysis...garbage in garbage out. Big data is complicated and accurately reporting on it is complicated. This is a glaring example of that. Things get classified wrong, queries are inaccurate, human error if forms are being completed manually. Just because the numbers are wrong doesn't mean it was intentional. Investigate and determine the cause. My guess is ultimately this was a system or process issue and not some intent to mislead.

There is a lot of crossover in quality of teams, especially in 4A and below. There are 1A schools that are better than 4A schools so it's entirely possible they could play each other and compete. That's completely different than the top of each class playing each other. And even then there isn't always a huge difference.

All great points Bobref! Recent teaching for Rs though is to let the QB cross in front of you but keep a distance behind him. If he's scrambled outside of you the likelihood of him to end up in a set passing position and ruling that way on pass/fumble is extremely unlikely. It's still important for you to keep the play boxed in properly and not get stuck on the sideline during the play. Some states have gone to putting the R on the right side of the QB regardless of throwing arm for consistency. This has trickled down from NCAA mechanics. They also teach a good when-in-doubt on these. If the defender hits from behind, it's a fumble. If the defender hits from the front it's a pass. The more I watch video the more those are accurate when it's not obvious in real time.

This is true. Occasionally you'll even see that at 6A schools. I remember working a Carmel game and the starting center couldn't have been much more than 5'8" and 200 lb. That's what it says. It's not unusual for 11-man teams to line up in a "tackle over" formation. They will put two eligible numbers on the same side of the line (usually a TE covered by a WR. This leaves a T on the back side with no eligible receiver outside of him. He's eligible by position but not by number. In 8-man that person is now eligible. If the TE lines up on the side now he's no longer an end and isn't eligible.

Not quite. It only says the ends are eligible which is true of 11-man football. What they are saying is the end can be #56 and still be eligible. That's not true in 11-man. As for the big uglies losing opportunities, from my experience there are players in 1A/2A playing OL who are smaller than skill players at larger schools.

I've said from the beginning, if we are going to shut down because 1 or 2 people test positive there is no point in starting. Until this virus is completely gone (which it likely never will be), there will be some spread no matter what we do. We can't be shut down forever so we have to learn to mitigate the spread as much as possible and restore some activities as much as possible. But also respect the dangers of the virus and take it seriously. But shutting everything down completely is not the answer either. Football and other sports though are going to be a lower priority. Remember through there are people who make a living in the sports industry. It's not just a game for us to watch and our kids to play.

I agree. If you take away football you take away the revenue it generates. I have no idea if high schools operate in the black for football, but the revenue definitely helps the overall budget at a minimum. Take away that revenue and you have to find some other reason to get people to pay you money. My kids have played non-revenue sports and been involved in many other activities that are funded either by parents or underwritten by the school. You aren't going to charge parents to attend a quiz bowl event and fans don't attend Key Club events.

This could definitely be a challenge, but if they only added 16 teams and nothing changed on the current 1A/2A side then it's only a net 8 crews. If some of those teams come from the current 1A/2A school the net will be less than that. The officiating shortage is NOT a reason to reject this proposal. It's going to be a challenge regardless.

I believe the issue is the university hosting the event versus renting the venue to another group to use. If that's correct NIU couldn't organize an event for HS teams to play at their stadium, but a conference or state association can contract to host an event there. There may also be rules against coaches or athletic staff being there during the event. It's still a win for the school though because student athletes are on their campus.

You wearing a mask helps others. Them wearing a mask helps you. So if we all collectively do it we reduce the spread. It will never eliminate it, but greatly reducing isn't a bad thing. And in most instances it's really easy to do. A football game isn't one of them though. While eating or drinking isn't one of them. But if you aren't doing activities like that why not? The science clearly states it helps in a significant enough way.

I prefer to live on the west edge of any time zone to maximize daylight at the end of a day rather than the beginning. I'm perfectly fine with ET. I often work with people around the country and I prefer to be aligned with those on ET. If we were CT I would have to start an hour earlier each day to be aligned with those on ET. End of day seems to have more flexibility. Just my personal preference.

I am thinking the same thing regarding officials. If all the teams play, but we have 20% of the officials opt to not work for personal safety reasons, I don't see any way we cover all the games scheduled for Friday night. I would expect to see some moved to Thursday and/or Saturday. If some teams choose not to play it may wash out. It will be interesting to see what happens if games are allowed to happen.

It's about managing risk. Think of it on a scale of 0 to 100. To achieve a risk of 0 you would avoid the flight entirely. To achieve a risk of 100 you would attend the flight in a packed plane with nobody wearing a masks, no deep cleaning between flights and flight attendants shaking your hand as you get off an one. Empty middle seats, spacing on lines to board, pre-packaged food you grab yourself, everyone wearing masks would have a risk of 20. Taking your mask off for the purpose of eating maybe increases your risk to 25 or 30. I'm making up these numbers for demonstration purposes, but you get the idea. Yes, taking off your mask to eat increases your risk, but only slightly compared to not doing anything. And the only way to completely eliminate the risk is to not get on the plane in the first place.

It could still be tricky to line everyone up, but I like the idea. I think you will still see Carmel-CG in the last game of any day if they played. It may not result in more tickets sold, but if I'm an Eastbrook (2A) fan and my team is in the finals and Marion (5A) is also playing, I may want to watch both games if they are back to back. If they are playing on separate days or with a game in between, I'm less likely to watch both.

Both very good posts and my thoughts exactly. I also completely understand those who feel we are crazy for thinking about playing football. I don't agree with them, but I respect their perspective. We are seeing a large spike in other regions of the country, but for the most part it's young people getting infected and some of the rise is due to increased testing. With the exception of a couple cities it doesn't appear the hospitals are being overwhelmed yet. That could change. I assume that means many of these positives are asymptomatic or mild symptoms. That could still impact a team by making players unavailable for a game, but the risk of serious illness is less. The most common argument is what happens if they get infected in practice and then infect their grandparents. If a player is concerned about that he/she should probably not play or stay as far away from those grandparents as possible. One thing I will add is no coach, players, official or others who choose not to participate should not be negatively affected going forward. If Bud Wright decides to not coach this year for his personal safety, he should be able to return next year with no questions asked. If an official decides not to officiate this year his/her rating for next year shouldn't be impacted. If a season ticket holder for the Colts or Notre Dame chooses not to renew this year for personal safety reasons, he/she should not lose their season tickets for the following year. I hope the IHSAA does decide to move forward with Fall sports, but if they choose to cancel the season I would completely respect that decision even if I don't agree with it.

The previous communication from Robert was that masks would NOT be required for officials, but that could definitely change. If masks are required for officials we probably shouldn't be playing. Personally I will probably not officiate if masks are required unless I get some kind of mask that makes it easier for me to breath. I'm all for wearing masks when in public and especially crowds, but there are circumstances where they aren't as practical. And if those impractical activities create too large of a risk they probably shouldn't occur. I would expect anything announced this week also won't be final. A lot can happen from July 1 to August 14/21.