Ron Lee hoped for a switch.
Instead, the HHSAA announced reductions while keeping fall, winter and spring sports in traditional order on Monday.
“Yes siree, we are ready to go,” the longtime Saint Louis football coach said. “Good news.”
Though approval of the plan is on deck, the shrinkage of all seasons to 11 weeks is still at the mercy of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the climate for school re-openings stays on track, football would begin on Aug. 17 and all other fall sports on Aug. 31. The HHSAA is willing to push the fall season back as far as Oct. 23, with an Oct. 5 start date for football. Beyond that, it is unchartered territory with the possibility of combining fall and winter seasons. Or outright cancellations.
Lee had hoped for a complete switch of revenue-generating sports like football from fall to winter season while possibly moving sports with less health-risk impact like golf and tennis earlier to the fall.
“If I coached tennis or golf, what difference would it make if it begins in August or December or February? That’s better than not having anything. They lost track and baseball (last spring),” Lee said. “You want another year like that? If everything goes really well, we can play in August or September, but if the governor says we can’t play, now what? I’m just trying to buy time.”
Ron Lee
At this point, in a normal year, it is graduation season and big crowds are at ceremonies statewide. There is a gradual re-opening underway though the state’s stay-at-home proclamation is in effect until June 30. At Saint Louis, which has won four Open Division state championships in a row, campus is quiet.
“Normally, we would be doing spring ball and getting ready for pass league, keeping the kids occupied,” he said. “That’s important.”
Having an Aug. 17 official start to high school football still leaves Lee with questions.
“What about all the little details for the kids? Can we go to the school during the summer? When are the schools going to open so we can work out and start training? Nobody seems to know. That’s what’s scary. Somebody’s got to put it together,” he said.
“Before you know it, we’ll be into June and nobody knows yet what we’re going to do. We have to get a plan and execute it, not just start Aug. 17,” Lee added. “Our governor and mayor are very, very cautious. Kauai hasn’t had a case in awhile. The Big Island is down to one or two (per day) now. And they just opened up the beaches, so how are they going to open up football? The biggest problem is going to be crowds, gatherings. I can easily see the governor saying, ‘Nobody at games.’ If there’s a little spike (in cases), which they’ll get after they open up restaurants on June 5, bang. Shut everything down.”
Lee has coached for more than a half-century, and retired from the Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort after 40 years.
“The thing that is lacking, you’re going to want (tourists) to come. Rather than the two-week isolation, what good is that? We should have, a month ago, either test them or work with the hotels. Not only you want them to come, you want them to spend money. A lot of the tourists are coming here because it’s safe. Whether they’re tested at home or when they come here, test them at the airport. We’re getting 150 or 200 a day, which is small, but have them put all their efforts in wanting people to come. To me, that’s our industry. That’s what’s going to pull us out. Not opening the malls. People haven’t even gotten their unemployment checks,” he said.
“All the effort, we test 300, 400 people a day, and we get one positive case. What a waste of time. Just do all the testing at the airport,” Lee said. “A month ago, the No. 1 thing should’ve been the economy. We have 200,000 jobs in the tourism industry.”
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