High school football teams across KC return to field in preparation for fall season

The first rays of sunlight washed over the Kansas City area early Monday morning, familiar sounds echoing from fields that had stood eerily quiet for months.

On one, dozens of high school football players counted methodically as they raised themselves up and down in unison. On another, voices strained as much as shoulder muscles under the weight of three months of quarantine brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Everyone runs!” a player yelled at Rockhurst, answered soon after by a chorus of “No one walks!”

Coaches are getting back into the habit of shouting to be heard. If that doesn’t work, they raise a whistle to their lips. Those coaches and the hundreds of athletes who reconvened Monday for the first time since March are thrilled to be back.

“It felt good to put up my whistle this morning,” Liberty coach Chad Frigon said, noting that his players had arrived in the school’s weight room by 6:30 a.m.

“It feels great,” Bishop Miege sophomore defensive end Chazz Tarantino said. “We’ve been working out all offseason anyway, so we’re not too out of shape, but it’s just good to get with the team and run over some things. Nice to reconnect with everyone.”

Coach Kelly Donohoe stood in the middle of the field at Rockhurst, where he’s beginning his first season since being hired away from Blue Springs, surmising the effort of more than 100 kids spread out around him. When dismissed for a water break, they fanned across the field like a swarm of bees dispersing from a hive.

Small white dots, each painted several feet apart into the yellow soccer lines overlapping the gridiron, signified where each player was required to place his water bottle and other belongings.

“When they walk in, we have four different thermometers spaced out, and then they have waivers that they’ve signed (saying) that they can (work out),” Donohoe said. “They have to have a parent signature, and then a coach has to collect the waiver.

“We have a coach as they walk down keeping their distancing ... so they don’t start grouping up.”

Rockhurst, along with Liberty, Bishop Miege and other schools on both sides of the state line, is requiring players to maintain their distance from one another as a means of combating the coronavirus.

“As we’re going, we’ve got to keep them three yards apart from each other in every drill that we do, and that’s why today is just more sprint stuff and try to keep them away,” Miege coach Jon Holmes said. “Every kid wants to be around each other — that’s the way it is. We’ve just got to keep them apart.”

The extended break was tough for Holmes, who said that in his 17 years of coaching this is the longest he’d ever gone without seeing his team.

“Oh, it’s been terrible,” he said. “I think you get into coaching and education to be around the kid and make a difference. And seeing them on Zoom is great, but it’s not as great as seeing them in person. So it was just good to see a lot of the kids.”

Athletic programs around the country, from the high school to major-league level, have been using online video conferencing to keep coaches in touch with their players. But jumping on a webcam is not the same as doing (or watching) push-ups and sprints.

During the height of the pandemic shutdown, Liberty had each position group pick a book to read. Assignments from their reading would then be discussed in a subsequent video session. Book choices varied widely, from Jon Gordan’s “Training Camp” to Lisa McCann’s “Predator vs. Prey.”

“Things they could pull leadership lessons from, and really for us to just guide some discussion instead of our Zoom meetings just being, ‘Hey how are you doing, how are you doing?’” Frigon said. “We had some things we could actually discuss.”

At Miege, although players weren’t assigned particular books, a number of them said they tried to focus on self-improvement.

“Something I started to do was meditating, like sitting in a room — it’s something I learned last summer,” Miege sophomore quarterback and safety Aiden Wing said. “Just taking my mental health more seriously off the field and getting myself more relaxed and calmed down, which I found is more effective during my workouts. I could do stuff that I couldn’t do earlier.”

Teams will continue to condition for the next couple of weeks as they work their way back into football shape. Coaches expect their players to be back in pads and throwing a football by early July, local health guidelines permitting.

“I think I speak for every coach in Kansas City when I say, ‘Heck yeah,’” Donohoe said. “It’s so fun to be back with the kids again.

“Three months of a layoff and, gosh, the spirit of the kids was unbelievable and the coaches are fired up. It’s just so fun to be back. It’s what we love to do.”