Lost Football Season Leaves Seniors Hanging

Wilbur Cross football Coach John Acquavita had a senior student-athlete aiming to play college ball. Then came a pandemic.

After the city’s health department on Aug. 14 announced the cancelation of school contact sports in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Acquavita tried for 10 days to reach the student. When the student finally responded, he said that he had gotten a job at Stop & Shop and wanted to quit football for good.

Acquavita said he worries that without the football season, more players will drop from the team and then from school.

“Although it’s not hundreds of kids, it’s still enough where lives are going to change because of this decision,” Acquavita said.

Hillhouse’s coach, Reggie Lytle, said he too fears rising seniors hoping to use football as a ticket to college have been hurt most by the canceled season. Without a season, New Haven’s senior players find themselves without scouting programs or any way to prove themselves.

Without football as a motivator, Lytle said, his players’ grades may drop.

Players agree the team is an integral part of their education.

“Most [players] focus on their academics because they have football and other sports to look forward to. It keeps them motivated, it brings them joy. So not having that, it will be challenging,” said Torae Wright, a senior at Hillhouse high school.

“This is supposed to be my breakout year,” said Gianni Bethea, a senior at Hillhouse. ​“I had a great junior year. Now it’s senior year to show how I’m changing and maturing into the game, but now that’s taken away.”

Acquavita is attempting to get a partial season going in the wake of the city health department decision. He said he envisions contactless practices five days a week where the coaches could be with players even if there are no games, as ​“prizes” for the work.

He said he hopes that some form of structured meetings can happen because he is worried about his players’ mental health.

“There’s been no discussion about mental health. It’s not been mentioned once yet in New Haven,” Acquavita said.

Some of the Hillhouse football players have taken matters into their own hands. A small group of players assemble at Bowen Field to practice skills during the week. There is no coach officially on duty, just students who are devoted to football. They run drills, condition, and try to keep themselves ready if the season becomes a reality.

Once the players arrived the other day, they laughed and joked as they lay their bags on the sideline. One took out two agility ladders for footwork drills, and placed them next to each other the field. The players took turns running through the ladder, carefully but quickly stepping out of each space between the rungs with the ball tucked expertly in their arm.

Coach Lytle watched from the shade in the bleachers, unable to coach his team, but sitting in support nonetheless.

For the rest of the make-shift practice, players split off into two groups. One group ran scrimmage plays. On one side the defenders waited to pounce on the quarterback and his receivers, who started at the 20-yard line and tried to score a touchdown. When they scored or turned the ball over, the sides switched. The linemen spent most of the practice doing conditioning by taking extra reps on the agility ladder, carrying a tractor tire down the field, and doing sprints.

By the end, the groups came together as a team and began running plays and drills as one unit, hoping to get a taste of the real thing soon. 

These practices are not just about recreation. For these players, football is family.

“Football has been an outlet for kids who get into trouble. When the season comes around, no one on the team gets in trouble. Our coaches check in on us and see if we need anything. Our coaches are role models for all of us. We’re all a family and we look out for each other. Now that we don’t have it, we have to figure out what we’re going to do,” said Ralph Hawkins, a Hillhouse junior whose athletic abilities are already drawing interest from colleges.

Statewide Picture

Unlike New Haven, most communities in Connecticut are reopening the schools with a hybrid remote-in-person learning schedule. And unlike New Haven, they’re fielding their football teams.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) made the decision to go forward with fall sports on Aug. 27. In an updated fall sports plan, the CIAC allowed for all fall sports to begin on Aug. 29, permitting low-risk conditioning and non-contact sport specific skill work until Sep. 20.

According to Glenn Lungarini, executive director of CIAC, the organization will reevaluate in the coming weeks and follow metrics closely to see if it will be safe to resume the season fully on Oct. 1. 

(Update: The league announced Friday that the football season would be canceled statewide.)

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“We need to have a fluid approach to this,” said Lungarini. ​“It’s our responsibility to give districts and give kids the best direction that we can.”

Erik Patkofsky, athletic director of New Haven Public Schools, noted that the CIAC went forward with the season knowing that New Haven and Bridgeport would likely be the only ones unable to participate.

“In the current model that [CIAC] have set up now, you’re going to probably see a lot of urban districts not be able to participate in everything and suburban districts going forward,” Patkofsky said.

Suburban districts with better resources to combat the spread of Coronavirus and buy better protective gear for their players will continue to play and have a foot up on places like New Haven and Bridgeport, where resources are spread too thin and it’s harder to control the spread of Covid-19, Patkofsky argued.

“The way this is coming down, to me, it’s inequitable to urban athletes.”

“The Board of Controllers voted 17 – 0 to play sports, and on that board there was no inner-city representation,” said Wilbur Cross Coach Acquavita.