Tales from the girls basketball front …
At the end of the last contact day Friday with her players, Marist coach Mary Pat Connolly sat them down for one final talk.
She updated them on what she knew regarding the upcoming season and encouraged them to keep their heads up.
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She added something else that she felt needed to be said.
“I told them, ‘I want to apologize to you for the craziness and that you’re caught in between groups of adults bickering. Just to let you know, it’s not your fault. It’s nothing that you did. We just have to hang in there and see what’s going to happen.'”
So many things already had happened over the span of three days.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announcing high school basketball was being put on hold.
The IHSA saying it was going ahead with the Nov. 16 startup date anyway.
Pritzker suggesting the season will be pushed to spring, and if the schools defy his order, they’ll face liability issues.
The IHSA shouting back by saying that it’ll push on anyway. Play ball.
Ultimately, it’s going to come down to the individual school districts deciding whether they want to side with Pritzker or the IHSA.
Seriously, I’m not going to yank on your chain with a prediction or delve too deeply into where it all stands “now.” This situation can — and probably will — change a few more times over the next several days.
The only sure bet is that flies on the wall at administration meetings this week will be entertained.
I had to ask Marist senior Sydney Affolter what the kids are thinking about the bickering adults.
“We’re all frustrated,” Affolter said. “Honestly, it’s all over the place. You hear one thing here. Five minutes later, you hear something else. And then they’re going against each other, and we’re like, ‘Who do we follow?’
“It’s just like … it’s just crazy. How do we know where we stand?”
Affolter said that — unlike the adults — the kids would find a way to work together to make the gym as safe an environment as possible.
“Oh, 100 percent,” Affolter said. “I’d be all in. If we have to wear masks, I’ll wear a mask. If we have to social distance on the bench, we’ll do that. Limited fans, whatever, I just want to play so bad.
“I honestly think that if we were to play basketball, everyone would be much more mindful and careful about who they’re seeing outside of their sport and school. They don’t want to put anyone they love or anyone else at risk.”
It has to be tough being a coach right now, for many reasons.
Lincoln-Way East coach Jim Nair said he was glad his team’s contact days ended just before the IHSA and Pritzker had their kerfuffle.
“We didn’t have to get caught in the whirlwind,” he said. “We were just thankful to our kids because they have been troupers through all this. It sure was tough for them.
“The kids have been great. Wearing the mask is not easy, but they were more than willing to do it if that’s what it meant to get on the court. Whatever obstacles were thrown in front of them, they rose to the challenge and didn’t complain.”
Last week, Thornwood coach Kevin Green told me about the mental stress of working with the ever-present possibilities associated with COVID-19.
“There’s a fear, right there,” Green said. “It would be life-shattering if one of your kids caught it and wound up in the hospital or passing away from it.
“It’s a Catch-22. You want the kids to play. You want to give them a chance to do it. But you don’t want to be that one example that goes wrong.”
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For now, Connolly is worrying about one thing.
“We have to make sure that the kids are OK,” Connolly said. “We want them to know that it’s nothing that they did. We want them to play. We want to play. But for now, we just go day to day.”
And hope that the ultimate decision will be the right one.