Games on! Portsmouth gives the OK to play all fall sports

Portsmouth High School has made its final call, and it’s a reverse: Fall interscholastic sports are now a full go.

Joining many of the city’s Seacoast neighbors, and based on guidance from a 71-page document submitted by a school board subcommittee earlier this week, Portsmouth Superintendent of Schools Steve Zadravec announced his decision on fall sports to parents Friday via the school district’s newsletter.

“Our Athletic Department is working with coaches to implement the plan,” Zadravec stated in the newsletter. “The committee did a great deal of work with the assistance of two doctors from Wentworth Douglas and a Research Scientist and Infectious Disease Expert. I am comfortable with the cautious approach outlined in this plan, including the use of phases tied to risk factors and disease transmission. I find the protocols outlined in the document to be the strictest I've seen and feel confident our athletic department and athletes can adhere to them.”

The announcement came on the first official date to play for the NHIAA’s “medium risk” sports, which includes soccer, field hockey and indoor girls volleyball. Portsmouth teams had already been approved to compete against area schools in the lower-risk sports of golf and cross country. The medium- and higher-risk sports had not been approved for interscholastic play prior to Friday; however, those teams were given the OK to practice and hold tryouts as the school board, administration and city health office worked through the decision-making process.

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Those “higher-risk” sports, which include football and spirit, can begin competing against area school districts on Friday, Sept. 25.

“I’m excited but, really, I’m exhausted,” said PHS head football coach Brian Pafford, who was among the first to volunteer his own research to help the school board’s subcommittee. “Probably, I’m lucky I’m not fired from my real job because of all the time I’ve been spending on this. It’s just crazy how much time it’s taken to get to this point, you know?”

For PHS coaches, student-athletes and parents hoping to get back on the field safely during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been a long, windy road to get here.

Zadravec made his initial recommendation on fall sports during a school board meeting on the night of July 28, laying out a plan that would have seen PHS opt out of NHIAA competition to create the equivalent of an SAU 52 bubble. In that scenario, all students would have been afforded the opportunity to participate in skills clinics and rec-league style activities after school, with a heavy emphasis on social distancing and the latest COVID-19 protocols.

Close to 20 community members, however, made it clear during the public comment section of that meeting that such a plan would not be well received. Most cited mental health concerns for students, and pleaded for decision makers to look at the data relative to known active coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the area. Multiple school board members expressed concern that night about dialing back too far on fall sports.

Days later, the NHIAA released its Return to Play Guidance document, labeling each sport as low, medium or higher risk along with detailed protocols covering a wide array of topics such as administrative functions, facility cleaning, limitations on gatherings, pre-workout screenings, face coverings, hygiene practices, hydration/food, travel, locker room and weight room use, facility entrance and exit strategies, and shared equipment. In the weeks that followed, local school districts Oyster River, Exeter, Winnacunnet, Dover and Spaulding all pushed forward with plans to compete within the NHIAA’s guidance.

Portsmouth, however, stopped short of such a decision during a school board meeting on Aug. 26, when Zadravec announced that SAU 52 would look into competing interscholastically in the lower risk sports of cross country and golf, but would stay with skills and drills only training for the others. During that meeting, Tara Kennedy, the vice chair of the Portsmouth School Board, gave a short presentation suggesting an athletics subcommittee be formed to crunch the latest data and explore a compromise that would give more student-athletes the chance to have a fall season. The forming of that subcommittee was voted on and approved that night. The committee’s final sport-by-sport policies, procedures and recommendations for each sport were included in the lengthy document submitted to Zadravec at the beginning of this week.

The subcommittee was technically two people: Board members Kennedy and Margaux Peabody; however, they sought out counsel from several invited participants, including acting athletic director Tom Kozikowski and Pafford. Multiple parents, a student-athlete, the student council president, a couple doctors, and a research scientist and infectious disease expert were also involved.

“Basically, and this is going to sound bad, more bureaucratic stuff than actually playing stuff,” Pafford said of the committee’s process. “Like, how we’re going to make sure we document everything. And if there’s a positive test, how we’re going to handle that, how the communication is going to flow, all kinds of stuff like that.

“I think the committee clearly did that to get over the top,” Pafford added. “I mean, for everyone else to play and for us to not, I think that would weigh on any decision a little bit. But I think the final plan pushed it over the top.”

Kennedy said this week that committee’s work is far from over.

“I can definitely say it has not been me,” she said. “I’ve been organizing the team. … A lot of the policies have been put in place by (Kozikowski) and the coaches.

“My focus is turning to working with these guidelines to get the winter and spring sports,” Kennedy added, “in case we have to worry about this stuff then.”