TOLONO — The lone difficulty Scott Hamilton faced Monday morning was an understandable one.
In leading Unity football’s first strength and conditioning activities under the “IHSA Stage 1 of Return to Play” guidelines — necessitated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — the longtime Rockets football coach and athletic director had to prevent his athletes from engaging in something that wouldn’t have appeared out of place prior to 2020.
“Once they were in groups, the kids wanted to talk and hang out. We had to remind them a little bit about (staying 6 feet apart),” Hamilton said. “But I think, for the most part, everything went as scheduled.”
Unity was among the first local schools to dip a toe into the return-to-play waters, the football program’s split workout between its recently revamped weight room and its outdoor track lasting a little less than 90 minutes with an 8 a.m. start time.
After individual body temperature checks and COVID-19 screenings, one group of nine student-athletes pumped iron inside while another got its collective heart racing with outdoor speed and agility exercises. Then, the parties flip-flopped before calling it a morning.
“Our kids were excited to be in our new weight room,” said Hamilton, who added that similar workouts with different players were slated for Monday evening. “It was a really positive experience, I think. Just the thought of finally some good news and good hope about moving forward and doing positive things heading in toward the fall.”
As Unity’s AD, Hamilton chatted with his coaches this past weekend following Friday’s release of the IHSA’s guidelines. He said the Rockets will focus first and foremost on getting varsity fall sports athletes involved in workouts.
It makes sense from a competitive timeline perspective, but also falls in line with the IHSA’s mandate that multi-sport athletes not switch from one predetermined strength and conditioning group to another during Phase 1.
“We have so many multiple-sport kids,” Hamilton said. “Our hope is as we get into Phase 4 of ‘Restore Illinois’ (Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s statewide reopening plan) that maybe there’ll be a Phase 2 for the IHSA (guidelines), and that will allow us to have some more kids, which will free up some more time for some of those other kids to get in there.”
Hamilton and his fall sports coaches laid out a schedule for different fall sports teams to take over the weight room and track on different days. That combined with prior purchase of safety equipment — such as digital thermometers and cleaning supplies — left Hamilton comfortable with a Monday restart to at-school athletic ventures.
“We feel like we’ve dotted all of our Is and crossed all of our Ts,” Hamilton said. “We knew that there was going to be a Day 1, whether it was (Monday) or (Tuesday) or Wednesday, and so we just felt like getting back onto it was the right thing to do.”
Hamilton and his cohorts do have some questions, which may have been answered at a planned Monday afternoon Zoom meeting between IHSA executive director Craig Anderson and Illinois Athletic Directors Association members.
One of Hamilton’s biggest concerns pertains to shared water dispensaries, especially when school is back in physical session and athletes are allowed to coexist in larger groups over time. All athletes are required to bring their own water bottles to workouts, and they cannot be shared.
Another query is what qualifies as strength and conditioning for cross-country, with running the entire makeup of that sport versus being form of preparation in many other sports.
“Those are some of the issues that I’m hoping over the next month or so that somebody will give us some ideas (about),” Hamilton said, “so we can purchase the things that we need to keep moving forward.”
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June 09, 2020 at 08:30PM
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Unity's Hamilton: Smooth start to strength and conditioning events - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette
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