The Georgia High School Association has loosened some of its conditioning restrictions for member schools.
The GHSA and the Sports Medicine Advisory Council released a statement last Tuesday, June 16. It stated that schools would be permitted to use specific equipment during conditioning and increase the number of participants in each conditioning group from 25 to 50 beginning Monday, June 22.
Gilmer High athletic director Matt Johnson noted that extensive adjustments to the school system’s infectious disease prevention plan were not needed to comply with the latest guidelines.
“It mas mainly just communication and conversation with the coaches who are already working with the kids,” Johnson said. “Social distancing, hand sanitizers, cleaning down (work out) stations ... all that remains the same. There’s still no field house or locker room usage or none of that.”
There were still questions left unanswered and the GHSA released another statement Monday.
“We needed to get some clarity from the GHSA, so (county athletic director) coach (Rodney) Walker was able to reach out to them (last week) to find out we were still not able to use helmets, shoulder pads or girdles (in football).
“Today (Monday) they released some additional clarity that says there’s no one-on-one scrimmaging, no two on twos or seven on seven. The guidelines we really needed to see on the front end were published today.”
Sports are now able to use balls, which means quarterbacks can pass to teammates and basketball players can practice shooting. Wrestling and cheerleading were not affected as much because all sports still have to adhere to social distancing practices.
“One of the biggest adjustments was just trying to find products to clean the balls when they got done with them,” Johnson said.
“Footballs and basketballs are going to be cleaned in separate ways. Footballs use more of a leather cleaner and basketballs will use more of a soap and water type cleaner with an antibacterial in it.”
In addition to football, basketball, wrestling and cheerleading, baseball players joined the conditioning fray this week. The Bobcats will meet four days per week in the evenings.
“These new guidelines are certainly a huge step in the right direction starting today,” said Johnson.
“It was a step closer to normal, and I was really happy for the kids today. Watching the basketball players being able to shoot and seeing the football players out there (on the field), it was just a renewed excitement.”
Johnson is hopeful they receive further guidance ahead of next week, which is the GHSA’s mandated “dead week” where no athletic activities will be permitted.