MVC schools ban spectators and are encountering barriers to regional scheduling

Just when Winthrop athletic director Joel Stoneton and his fellow Mountain Valley Conference administrators think they have a plan for how to play sports this fall, COVID-19 throws a new wrench into the works.

The latest potential obstacle popped up Monday, when the Region 9 School of Applied Technology in Mexico announced two confirmed COVID-19 student cases at the school, which takes students from MVC members Dirigo, Mountain Valley and Telstar high schools.

As a result, Dirigo High School has been closed for 72 hours for cleaning. Students have switched to remote learning, and sports practices and meetings were canceled. Mountain Valley and Telstar did not close their schools. Administrators from Mountain Valley and Buckfield were scheduled to go before the RSU 10 school board Monday night for a decision on fall sports.

The news was another reminder of how tenuous plans for fall sports in Maine remain even after the state and Maine Principals’ Association approved moving forward with fall sports, except for football and volleyball, last week.

Stoneton, who is president of the MVC, said the number of the conference’s schools that have committed to participating in fall sports is encouraging.

“Twelve of the 15 schools have school board approval and are moving forward,” he said.

The MVC has added Richmond as an associate member to be included in its scheduling formula, giving schools more options. The conference has also opened up its scheduling for the first time to include games against regional opponents from other conferences. But one or more schools still could put the brakes on their teams’ fall seasons before games start on Sept. 25, or at any time once the season starts.

Athletic directors have worked with schedule-makers to develop tentative game schedules, some based on geographic pods with schools within their region, while they await word from schools who have yet to decide on fall sports.

Oak Hill athletic director Jim Palmer said the school is still looking at all of its scheduling options but is under a time crunch.

“We’re waiting for other schools to get school board approval to see what we’ll have for other teams,” said Palmer, who added he has talked with nearby non-MVC schools such as Lewiston, Edward Little and Gardiner for matchups. “If we can get (an opponent) within our conference, we’ll stay with in-conference. But having no JVs and some schools with lights gives us some flexibility to do things like later start times. But there are a lot of moving variables.”

The conference has decided to remove one of those variables by not allowing spectators at games for the fall season this year.

“That was one of the things that was a real concern for some schools,” Palmer said.

Stoneton said schools will be allowed to make exceptions for parents and family to attend a designated Senior Day game. Many schools are also making plans to live stream games or record them and make them available on streaming services. But adding fans safely into game-day operations wasn’t feasible given the limited manpower of MVC athletic departments.

“There’s just so much to it right now, the last thing we need to do is manage fans and make sure we don’t go over 100 people,” Stoneton said. “I’m my own administrative assistant, my own scheduler, my own line crew … I haven’t even lined any of the fields yet and I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to do it before the season starts.”

Another potential stumbling block is transportation.

Stoneton said as many as six MVC schools have indicated they won’t have full transportation available for road games and one, Carrabec, will stop having any transportation available beyond Oct. 5. State restrictions limit the number of people who can ride in a bus, and many school departments are short on bus drivers.

“Transportation is huge, and not just because I can only send 23 people on a bus at one time,” Stoneton said. “We only have one bus available per day for day trips, which is something I’ve never had to deal with.”

Stoneton and Palmer both said they are waiting for more information on 7-on-7 flag football, which the MPA has encouraged schools to explore as an alternative to tackle football. That includes whether their own players will be interested in participating. Palmer said he has encouraged Oak Hill football players to consider other fall sports.

“We’re still trying to get all of the answers on 7-on-7,” Palmer said. “It’s frustrating me because I don’t know what it looks like yet.”

Stoneton said MVC schools hope to know what this fall’s football landscape will look like by the end of the week. He said administrators are exploring other football-related activities as an alternative and talking with other schools about how to make it competitive.

But it’s not just football players whose enthusiasm for fall sports has suffered. Stoneton said athletes at Winthrop seem hesitant to get fired up for a season given the unknowns involved and the chance that a season could be delayed further or snuffed by an outbreak.

“I’ve been in school for a week now and I haven’t had one kid ask me about fall sports,” he said. “It’s like they think we’re going to pretend to have a season.”