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Date: 3/2/2021
WESTHAMPTON – The Hampshire Regional School Committee voted to move forward with Fall II sports – which include basketball, indoor track, track, baseball, and football.
Fall II sports began on March 1 and run until April 25.
During the Feb. 23 meeting, many student-athletes spoke and shared why they felt that it was important for sports to happen.
Justin Forest, a senior captain on the boys’ basketball team shared that playing for the high school would be safer than going the other route and playing for an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU).
“A majority of our team would be playing AAU basketball if the School Committee does not allow competition, which then makes it a higher risk for the players and families because of the leniency from AAU,” Forest shared.
Alice Jenkins, a member of the girls’ basketball team, shared that while practicing with limited contact and masks has been challenging, the athletes continue to adapt and work hard in hopes that they are able to move to a competitive season. Jenkins also mentioned the physical and mental health aspect of sports.
“Now with practice and the hope of playing, athletes are motivated to get moving and get in shape. Remote learning has caused severe strains on student’s mental health and by taking away some people's only stress outlet, you will be taking away their ability to cope with these unprecedented levels of stress which could cause a huge amount of long-term damage,” Jenkins said.
She continued to say that they are all grateful for the chance to have practice, but she believes that the closer to normal that they can get, the better it would be for the students.
Hampshire Regional High School Principal Kristen Smidy gave an update as to what was discussed at the joint meeting she had with the Board of Health.
In December 2020, the Board of Health recommended that basketball competition take place as long as coronavirus mitigation strategies that the School Committee proposes are followed. They also met on Feb. 15 to discuss indoor track and football. Smidy explained that the Board of Health unanimously approved indoor track and were reserved about football because of the blind spots with contact tracing considering it is a co-op sport. The board is worried that if community members or students in Easthampton got COVID-19, Westhampton’s contact tracers and nurses would not be made aware.
Since the teams will be around other schools, each sport was passed under the motion that the school’s protocols will be followed and that there is communication among the athletic directors and coaches of various teams with regards to contract tracing.
Athletic Director John Plourd expressed multiple times during the meeting that he and many of the other directors are in constant contact with each other already.
Interim Superintendent Michael Sullivan said there are four reasons as to why he is comfortable recommending Fall II sports – the community transmission has gone down, there has been no transmission within the school building during the school day, the experience of winter sports in other communities show that it is relatively safe, and the way the athletes have conducted themselves in a serious manner.
Because Easthampton does not have a football field due to the construction at White Brook Middle School, practices will take place at Hampshire Regional High School (HRHS) and all games will be away, being played at the school they are going against.
On Feb. 9 the Easthampton School Committee approved football and Plourd shared that Easthampton was waiting for them to make their decision.
Plourd informed the committee that while more students may join, there are currently 16 students signed up to play football, and 10 of them attend Hampshire Regional High School.
Plourd noted that even with HRHS hosting the practices it is still the Easthamptons program so they will have to follow their rules and guidelines. Easthampton did let Plourd know that they are happy to accommodate anything that they may ask of them.
Although the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) recognizes indoor and outdoor track as two different seasons, the committee voted the two as one sport.
Indoor track is usually a winter sport but it has been moved to Fall II and outdoor track has been moved to the spring.
Plourd informed the committee that when it comes to indoor track, the school does not have an indoor track facility to compete in. They usually use Smith College but they are not allowing people on their campus.
Plourd said that schools are talking about essentially getting their indoor track teams to start practicing and depending on how the weather goes over the next month, they can compete outside using indoor distances.
“The problem that we are running into right now is that Hampshire Regional does not have a current track coach on staff, we have the listing out there and we are hoping to hire somebody. What I am hoping for from the School Committee is to make a decision in terms of whether or not we would allow indoor track to happen that way I can go ahead with hiring and work with the new coach to set up what the indoor track season would look like,” Plourd said.
Although the five sports were approved, Smidy reserves the right to enforce the coronavirus protocols and cancel any sport or pull an athlete out. She expressed that she feels that the students understand how serious the staff and committee are being and understand that it will no longer be their privilege if things change.
During the meeting, Don Willard, chair of the New Hingham Regional School Committee as well as a parent of student-athletes at HRHS and the wrestling team’s assistant coach, mentioned that wrestling is a winter sport and there has been no conversation about it.
Plourd explained that the MIAA has moved wrestling to the spring but that is pending due to the fact that they still have to move forward with it – if it will take place at all.
While the MIAA recommendations for spring sports have not been released, Larson believed that it was safe to vote because none of them is high contact like basketball or football.
Baseball, softball, and lacrosse were passed under the motion that the school’s protocols will be followed and that there is communication among the athletic directors and coaches of various teams with regards to contract tracing.
The spring season is set to begin on April 26 and run through July 3.