By Corday Gaskins & Jordan Schwartzberg
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
The Problem
High school football is more than just a sport. It’s an outlet for more than 1 million athletes across the country, according to a survey from the National Federation of State High School Associations. For top athletes, football can be a way out of poverty. For others, it serves as an escape from life’s stresses.
When your escape from reality disappears or changes drastically, what happens? That’s the question players across the country faced as COVID-19 spread through the nation, forcing many, but not all states, to cancel their 2020 fall seasons. For athletes who still were allowed to play, there were major adjustments.
Jacob Rivers, a freshman at Towson University and former high school kicker at Conestoga High School in Pennsylvania, said his high school trimmed its schedule, enforced masks and only allowed for non-contact drills, according to his teammates who were still on the team in fall 2020.
Some athletes weren’t able to play at all. Many had their seasons canceled, a huge blow to athletes looking to secure a college scholarship. In rare cases, athletes moved so they could play. Jake Garcia, a star quarterback from California, packed his bags and left for Georgia.
California didn’t allow high school football teams the opportunity to play while states like Georgia, Arizona, Texas and Utah allowed competition. Garcia was able to play a full 2020 high school football season in Georgia, which helped earn him a scholarship to the University of Miami.
Without the ability to play games or practice, many teams struggled to maintain chemistry. Team chemistry plays a huge role in football. Players must be on the same page with each other for the team to win games.
Additionally, without football, many athletes were unable stay mentally healthy. Football is part of their routine and a social outlet. Kyle Yost, a sports medicine specialist with the University of Maryland Medical System, said in an article that many high school athletes are experiencing extreme hormonal and life changes. As a result, they “use sports as a way to help reduce stress and control anxiety and depression.”
John Quinn, a pediatric psychiatric clinician at Northern Light Acadia Hospital in Bangor, Maine, told a newspaper that for kids in the developmental stage, sports can be an important part of their identity.
In a nationwide study conducted by the University of Wisconsin, approximately two-thirds of 3,243 high school student-athletes surveyed who had lost the chance to play a spring sport reported feelings of anxiety and depression at levels that in most cases would require medical attention.
Then there’s the physical aspect. As schools across the country locked their gyms, high school football players needed a way to stay in shape. Without sports, athletes had their routines broken up and were confined to their houses due to lockdowns. This led to players feeling physically and mentally drained.
The Wisconsin study found that “physical activity levels were 50 percent lower than they were for the respondents prior to the pandemic and cited quality-of-life scores lower than researchers had ever found in similar studies of adolescents.”
With all of this happening, how did coaches maintain team chemistry and keep their athletes mentally and physically healthy?
The Solution
Coach Duncan of Phillip O’Berry Academy of Technology in North Carolina had a problem many coaches faced: his football team wasn’t allowed to play games. But Duncan still wanted his players to experience practice and strength training. They were not allowed to meet in a large group setting and the players were not allowed to go to the school gym.
When COVID-19 first hit in Spring 2020, Duncan had a Zoom call with the fellow coaches and all his players. He wanted everyone to realize how serious he was about getting them ready to play when the season picked back up again. He then asked his players for a verbal commitment to learning plays and workouts in a Zoom environment.
Duncan created chalk talk sessions via Zoom to discuss the playbook and Zoom workouts that he then had his players run through. Duncan ran through the X’s and O’s his players needed to understand. He stressed staying “game ready” through Zoom workouts so that his players wouldn’t have to get ready come the following season.
The chalk talk sessions allowed for Duncan’s players to gain a better grasp of the playbook, all from their living room. Without the advent of technology, Duncan would have had a much harder time.
Duncan started the Zoom and waited for players to log in. When the whole team arrived, Duncan was ready to go with a whiteboard in hand. He made a column for the linemen, a column for the wide receivers and a column for the fullback and running back. By doing so, players were able to focus on their part of the play without having to pay attention to the rest of the squiggly lines being drawn. As he covered each play, Duncan fielded questions and made sure his players understood what was going on. If he believed a player wasn’t paying attention, he would call on him.
Duncan had to make the best out of the situation, so he decided to do the chalk talk sessions via Zoom to enhance team chemistry and allow for students to experience football, even if it wasn’t what they were used to.
Duncan said with the chalk talk sessions, repetition is critical. He makes sure to do these sessions every week of the season and offseason to ensure that his players understand the playbook. Without repetition, teaching players the playbook via Zoom can lead to all sorts of issues.
So how does Duncan make sure his players are staying in peak mental and physical shape during COVID-19?
He makes sure that all players can work out by having them go buy exercise bands. These resistance bands can be used in a variety of environments no matter where his players are located.
Duncan works out with his players over Zoom to show them that he’s with them. He runs them through a live workout shouting out what they should be doing. Duncan turns his camera on to make sure his players know the form of each exercise. Duncan didn’t require the students to have their cameras on, but he may change that in the future. When Duncan is doing the exercises, he can’t scroll through the Zoom call to make sure his players are doing the work. A lot of the workout is built on trust. He holds multiple sessions each day for players who have busy schedules. In a normal semester, players would be using weights in the school gym and Duncan would be doing the workout with his players.
Duncan said that doing the workouts with his players, even on Zoom, gives them that extra push that makes his players feel as though they have another friend to work out with during the pandemic.
Occasionally, Duncan met up with his players at a park to do workouts, while respecting social distancing guidelines. His players would work out in circles doing exercises like push-ups and sit-ups, go through a couple of routes, and would gain a feeling of team camaraderie.
Through all this, Duncan gave his players a sense of team chemistry and fitness. It wasn’t the football season that many were used to, but it was a form of the sport and allowed for them to get their minds off the outside world.
Insights
Patience was a crucial factor for Duncan when it came to coaching through Zoom. He found a time when all his athletes were available, he gave them a speech and told them that he needed them in order to do well.
He also implemented new formats of teaching for his athletes in his chalk talk sessions. Duncan teaches his plays in three separate ways.
“I teach visually, I teach them verbally and I teach them through reps,” he said.
He teaches his play in the main three learning styles. He starts visually by drawing the plays on white boards. He draws blocking schemes for the linemen and routes for the wide receivers.
After he establishes the play, he asks each position group what their assignment is on each play. Secondly, he teaches them verbally by telling them the concept of the play and formation and asks them what to do if the defense comes out in different formations. Lastly, he physically teaches them the plays by making them do walk-throughs.
Duncan’s advice to coaches is to have one plan and put all your effort into it. He does not believe in having a backup plan.
“I don’t make a plan B, I only make a plan A. If you make a B backup plan that means you don’t believe in your plan A,” he said.
Evidence of Effectiveness
The transition was tough, but Duncan was able to install his playbook and he got his team through the 2021 spring football season. A lot of high schools cancelled the fall 2020 football season due to Covid-19. Spring ball is a season that was implemented to give senior football players a chance to touch the football field the last time.
Duncan was effective in installing his playbook because he used a lot of repetition. His players were able to understand the playbook quickly, he said.
Duncan used his pre-COVID method of installing plays. The method entails him taking his players through a highly intense workout to get the players tired. The workout involves his players doing a lot of sprints and cardio. Right after the workout he installs the plays with them while they are tired.
Limitations
Some athletes were not engaged in the Zoom calls with Duncan. They would have their cameras off, and he could not tell if his team was paying attention.
Duncan felt that he could not fully train his players through Zoom. Not being there with them in person he felt limited the workouts because his workouts are more intense in person. Being a high-intensity guy and a motivator, Duncan likes to be around his players while he is training them. He prefers to critique his players while they train to make sure they are using proper form and hitting the right muscles groups.
“I wasn’t right there with them. I usually work out with my guys, and I was working with them on online too but however, I can’t monitor everybody or push the guy that’s just standing around,” he said.
He was also limited in the number of times he could walk through plays because they barely practiced in person.
“The only time we’re really able to do walk-throughs was before games,” he said.