News of suspended season sinking in for local coaches

Published 7:04 pm Monday, March 16, 2020

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Three days after the Alabama High School Athletic Association suspended all athletic activities beginning Wednesday, local teams and coaches are still trying to let everything sink in.

The COVID-19 coronavirus has forced cancelations and suspensions all the country. Local sports teams found out their fate last Friday when the Alabama High School Athletic Association followed Gov. Kay Ivey’s intentions to close schools, with a decision to suspend all athletic activates indefinitely.

“It’s surreal really,” said Charles Henderson head baseball coach John Glushchick. “We are thinking we were going to go on spring break, but now it’s almost like we are going on summer vacation. I hate it for all of us.”

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The Goshen Lady Eagles softball team has three seniors on the roster. Head coach Amy Warrick feels most sorry for the three veteran players.

“We feel bad for the seniors,” Warrick said. “We were going to try and have a senior night on Tuesday, but were told we had to cancel everything. It’s bad for the girls, it’s bad for the seniors. We feel bad for them.”

With the sudden announcement on Friday, many of the coaches were in the same boat as the players when it came to information.

“I have know idea,” Warrick said. “I can’t tell anybody anything because we have never been through anything like this before. I’ve had parents get frustrated, but I have never had a season shut down like this. We’ve been told very little information. We were just told to do something and that was it.”

Going back to Friday, the Lady Eagles expected to be able to play one final game before the shut down. They had a practice scheduled for Monday, but were then told Tuesday’s game wasn’t going to happen.

“We were still thinking we were going to have an area game,” Warrick said. “They’re just really frustrated.”

The Charles Henderson baseball players were getting ready to play Rehobeth last week when they got the news.

“Rehobeth is a really good team and we were in turmoil,” Glushchick said. “We were thinking this might be our last game. I don’t think we thought about the game at all. We didn’t have our minds on the game. We were thinking about being out of school.”

With still so much uncertainty, coaches are continuing to take things one day at a time.

“We’re practicing today,” Gluschick said on Monday. “Keep everything as normal as possible because we have a fourth block. We’re not allowed to do anything after school, but we are trying to keep things as normal as possible. We are going to anticipate playing again by April 6. Hopefully these guys will do some work on their own and we’re go from there.”

“We had a small hitting practice yesterday (Sunday),” Warrick said. “Yesterday we were more hopeful than we are today. I was telling them to please go home and continue throwing. Some dads were making plans to do things with their girls. I haven’t seen them today because they excused them. My kids aren’t here.”