Gateway, Plum athletic directors adapt to covid-19 roller coaster

Athletic directors have had it rough this year.

Planners at heart, many of those plans have been scrapped, reworked, canceled and reworked again, said Josh Shoop, the Athletic Director at Plum Borough School District.

“It’s been very, very hard,” Shoop said. “I think I’ve lost a couple years during these times.”

He said one of the biggest hurdles he’s had to maneuver is the notion that he is favoring groups of spectators over another, which he said is absolutely untrue.

“We want everybody (at games), especially the parents of the athletes, the parents of the marching band, cheerleaders – everyone. The department needs revenue from ticket sales,” he said.

But for the last month, that hasn’t exactly been the reality. Football and volleyball games across the district – and across the county – have been largely cut off from spectators. The pandemic restrictions on crowd sizes have forced districts to find ways to stream games online or broadcast them to television.

Those limitations lifted partially Tuesday when Gov. Tom Wolf revealed a formula for number of spectators allowed that’s based on a percentage of a facility’s capacity rather than the 25-person indoor and 250-person outdoor restrictions that had been in place.

Indoor events are limited to 10% to 20% of capacity, depending upon the venue’s size, and outdoor events can admit 15% to 25%.

At Gateway, where covid-19 cases have forced the cancellation of two games in a row, those rules will be followed, but Athletic Director Don Holl is limiting crowd size even further.

Holl said the high school’s gym can fit 400 people in it while following the governor’s new indoor capacity rules. But he said the district will limit it to 200 moving forward. The outdoor stadium can fit 1,100 when following the rules, but he wants to stay closer to 700. The reason is he wants to make sure everyone is spaced 6 feet apart.

“People have been frustrated. And it’s been justifiable,” said Holl, who also serves as the high school football team’s head coach. “I mean we have a junior starting at quarter back. The family is supportive. But the parents couldn’t go to the first game. So I fully understand people’s frustrations.”

There have been other challenges, he said.

In Gateway’s reopening plan, some students have opted to learn from a hybrid model, putting them in school two days a week. When they’re at school, making it to practice is easy.

“But then some of them have to get to school because they’re not already here. I know that along with homeschooling with younger siblings, figuring out rides can be a strain on families,” he said.

Both Plum and Gateway districts have turned to streaming services and live television. At Plum, the high school’s TV broadcast class was able to display the first football game on a screen in the borough’s baseball field, where a group gathered to watch the team.

“So there are good things going on with that,” Shoop said. “But I’ve been doing this for 19 or 20 years, and this is by far the most challenging. It’s been really, really hard. The positive thing, though, is the kids are playing.”