COVID a game-changer for sports | News, Sports, Jobs

On March 11, 2020, high school gyms across Pennsylvania were filled with anxiety, nerves and a feeling of dread.

The second round of the PIAA basketball tournament finished up that night with the Bellwood-Antis, Bishop Guilfoyle, Cambria Heights and Tyrone girls all advancing to the quarterfinals, as well as the Bishop Guilfoyle and Bishop Carroll boys.

None of those teams played another game that season and the seniors — including Bellwood-Antis’ Alli Campbell, who had just scored her 3,019th career point to become the first basketball player in the county to go over the 3K-point threshold — never played another high school game.

The culprit? COVID-19.

Ryan Dionis (left) and his father, Thomas Dionis, both of Altoona, watch Ryan’s son Baran play his first Teener Major League game on June 1, 2020, at Seitz Field.
Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

The tournament was suspended for two weeks the next day and finally canceled, along with the entire PIAA spring sports season, on April 9.

High school sports in Pennsylvania resumed in the fall but looked much different, and some of the changes are still in play five years later.

Higher seeds hosting

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, both the District 6 and PIAA used neutral sites for most of their postseason games. The pandemic made that unfeasible and a change was made to make the higher seed the home team in the district playoffs and the team on the top of the bracket the home team in the state playoffs.

“When we made that change, we were required to make that change,” PIAA Chief Operating Officer Mark Byers said. “At the time, a school not involved in the event was not willing to open their doors to two different communities coming from the outside and participating, so it became a requirement to play at the home sites that year with the exception of the finals.”

Ohio State’s Tuf Borland and Penn State’s Michal Menet meet for the coin toss in an empty Beaver Stadium on Oct. 31, 2020.
Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

When restrictions were relaxed, District 6 kept the pandemic model. The PIAA also allowed for opening-round games to be played at home sites.

“I think it was a positive change, because we were struggling in all of our sports to find neutral sites, because a neutral site is committing their personnel to hosting an event that none of their teams are participating in,” District 6 chairman Bill Marshall said. “What we have done since 2020 is in April of each year, we have our District 6 annual meeting and banquet. All schools’ athletic directors and principals are required to attend. Each year as part of my remarks, we survey the member schools to see if they want to stay with the higher seeds hosting or if they want to move to neutral sites.

“In those surveys, it has been consistently overwhelming that our member schools want to stay with the higher seeds hosting until the district championship game. From an operational standpoint, it’s much more efficient. That’s a change that started with COVID-19, but it’s actually been a positive change for District 6.”

Coaches have enjoyed the change, as it adds motivation during the regular season.

“It gives meaning to the whole season and gives meaning to every game,” Hollidaysburg football coach and athletic director Homer DeLattre said. “Every night, you’re playing for that playoff game at home. That’s another good change that came. I think a lot of people like it. I think it’s something that will stay, because it has been very well received.”

Byers said playing home state playoff games also helped the PIAA discover new viable sites for neutral site games later on in the bracket.

“It has been well received,” Byers said. “I would say the other added benefit is that we have been able to identify other locations that maybe weren’t on our radar prior to going to those first-round sites. Part of that is that we’re playing in different areas of the state that we previously wouldn’t have. You think about a school like Bradford or Port Allegany, which are up in the northern tier, which we had never played. What that’s done for us is we have games across Route 6 where we have played there even in subsequent rounds when we’re trying to identify neutral locations.”

Brackets for first-round PIAA matchups have also been released quicker than before COVID-19.

“The turnaround time in communicating information by using home sites has also decreased,” Byers said. “In basketball, we have 192 games in our first round. As long as the schools meet the hosting criteria with spectator seating, we can get information out to all our member schools and not just those hosting faster.”

Online tickets

When the limited number of fans who were able to attend those playoff games in late 2020 and 2021 bought their tickets, all of it was done online, which served two purposes. Game managers knew how many people would be in attendance and could limit the number and physical money and tickets were not exchanged.

Postseason tickets through the fall of 2024 had remained exclusively online, though there are talks to possibly change that at the state level.

“We had athletic directors that were handling thousands of dollars of cash and waiting to deposit it,” Marshall said. “By moving to online ticketing, it has become a much safer process. It’s also great for our auditing purposes. There are zero issues, because everything is a direct deposit now. For all of our events, we make sure we have people at the sites with a computer so if someone doesn’t have a credit card or would like to pay cash, we’ll do that transaction at the site on a computer.”

Byers certainly sees the positives in online purchases.

“I agree with Bill,” Byers said. “From a game manager’s perspective, what we have heard, not only about the safety of not having to deal with cash, but they are now free to run games. They don’t have to worry about being a financial manager at a contest. They see the number of people coming in so they can plan accordingly with the number of security and ticket scanners necessary, because they have that information up front. They can also play a more active role with teams when they come in for the contest.”

The PIAA has been discussing whether or not it will continue to enforce online-only postseason ticket purchases at its recent meetings.

“I think we’re looking to have it stick,” Byers said. “But I think we’re looking at ways to ensure individuals have access to contests. We have increased our customer service here in addition to our events, our staff has access to district events. Not to the detail of running them or anything like that, but assisting individuals with tickets.”

District 6 is keeping an eye on the final decision.

“There has been discussion about changing it and allowing people to do cash purchases,” Marshall said. “We’re sort of following the lead of the state. One of the things that I have always said is, we’d like to emulate in the district playoffs exactly what the kids are going to experience at the state level.”

Though Marshall does feel like one casualty involved in the change to online-only tickets has been unfortunate.

“I do miss the student tickets,” Marshall said. “There have been pros and cons to (online-only tickets).”

More streaming options

With numbers limited in gymnasiums and stadiums, parents and loved ones expressed frustration they were unable to watch their student athletes play.

Some schools already had streaming services such as Juniata Valley’s “Hornet TV” made popular during the Green Hornets’ girls basketball and varsity football playoff runs just prior to the pandemic, but at the time, those were the exceptions, not the norm.

Now, with the rise of the National Federation of High Schools Network, it’s rare to find a major high school game that isn’t streaming online somewhere.

“A lot of grandparents go south for the winter,” Marshall said. “They don’t want to travel in the weather, so I think (streaming) is a great opportunity for them. The cost is half the price. It only costs $200 for a school to stream if they are a member of NFHS. It has been a good thing.”

The expansion of streaming has been state-wide.

“Whether that’s in traditional media or not traditional media in addition to streaming, it has just exploded in the last five years,” Byers said. “Initially with COVID-19, but even since then, our schools have gotten creative in trying to highlight their kids and make it available to people who are not able to get to the game in person.”

In addition to helping fans who can’t make the game in person, the streaming services have made it simpler for coaches to have access to game film, especially when the state playoffs begin.

“It makes it a lot easier in the state playoffs, especially when you are playing an opponent you don’t get to see a lot locally,” DeLattre said. “It’s easier to start pulling games off online that have been streamed. It’s very beneficial in the PIAA postseason when you are playing teams from three or four hours away.”

Though the number of fans watching the streaming services of high school events has gone up since COVID-19, the number of people in the stands hasn’t fully recovered — in part, perhaps, because of the streaming.

“The state does a sliding scale where first-round games cost ‘X’ amount of dollars and second round games and semifinals go up,” Marshall said. “We’re going to look at that, because obviously it is impacting ticket sales when people can just stay home and watch the game. But I think it’s been a great change for people not in the area to see their grandkids or nieces and nephews.”

Still developing

The result of other changes to high school sports made during the COVID-19 pandemic has yet to be determined.

At Hollidaysburg Area Senior High School, the lack of sporting events going on allowed administration to re-evaluate several things including its safety plan — which may have directly led to saving the life of sophomore Spencer Davis, who suffered sudden cardiac arrest during a high school football practice last fall.

“During the downtime, athletic administrations got a chance to evaluate everything that they do,” DeLattre said. “There’s no downtime in our jobs. You’re going from one thing to another to another and there’s not a lot of time to sit down and evaluate what you are doing and how to make things better. COVID-19 did allow that to happen and allowed people to evaluate what they are doing in their programs and make changes for the better.”

Though people could not meet in person, the state became more connected through online meetings that once were held only in person and made it impractical for attendance from people on the other side of the state.

“It forced all of us to communicate more effectively,” Byers said. “Speaking with Pat Gebhart, who oversees our officials, he thinks that communication that took place with officials and administrators when you’re talking about contact tracing and making sure officials are OK to officiate a game and the protocols, that communication has stayed. People are more likely to reach out and ask where they should park and what time they should be there.”

Some sports like volleyball — which now no longer switches sides — and PIAA and District 6 track have changed.

“Track was forced to go to a single day in each classification,” Byers said. “We haven’t stuck with that schedule, but we have since modified the schedule to be more athlete-friendly. All of our distance events are now contested in a timed final, where before that it was just the 3200. I think that gives them more time and the athletes have really appreciated it.”

Unfortunately, it has also become harder to be recruited as a high school athlete due to so many college athletes participating more than four years after being granted extra seasons due to the pandemic and other changes at the college level.

“Right now, there’s a lot of chaos,” Tyrone football coach John Franco said. “Eventually, there’s going to have to be some structure. I was talking to the (former) defensive coordinator at Penn State, Tom Allen. He agreed with me that the first order of business will be to control the lawyers. No matter what the NCAA tries to do, if there’s one player that’s dissatisfied and he gets a lawyer, the lawyer can go right to the law and put a stop to anything. That never happened before.

“They would start the recruiting your junior year. That’s still true for approximately 5% of the high school football players being recruited. That’s the elite group that is going to start as freshmen or at least play a lot. But for the other 95%, what they have done is pushed everything back.”

High school athletes who have committed to a college prior to their senior season are becoming rarer since the pandemic.

“Every coach from Saint Francis to the PSAC coaches to Tom Allen, the first thing they have to do is re-recruit their own players,” Franco said. “They have to make sure all the players they want back are going to come back, which takes time. Then, the second phase is that they have to go to the transfer portal and see who they can pick up. The third phase becomes the high school recruits, which gets shoved off until well after their senior season.”

The PIAA didn’t just enforce the changes and navigate the coaches and student athletes through the pandemic. Its members felt it personally, just like everyone else.

“My kids were part of it. That’s the irony of it,” Byers said. “They lived through it. I had a kid that lost the spring season of their freshman year. Is that the same as losing your senior year? Absolutely not, but it was still an opportunity to participate, and we all talk about how important it is to participate. Kids losing what turned out to be the better part of not only the spring but the first half of the summer was difficult for all of us. But everyone certainly persevered and overcame.”