Simple pleasures: Practice, finally

By Paul D. Bowker
Posted 12/9/20

The third of December had finally arrived.

Members of Highland High School’s boys basketball team began to wander out of the locker room as head coach Bill Zywiec stood in a hallway and …

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Simple pleasures: Practice, finally

Posted

The third of December had finally arrived.

Members of Highland High School’s boys basketball team began to wander out of the locker room as head coach Bill Zywiec stood in a hallway and looked over his practice plan for the first time.

Yes, for the first time.

And even that was a simple cause for celebration.

Oh, Coach Bill had spent the previous two weeks putting together that practice plan and he tried to remain hopeful. Would practice actually begin on the third of December? Or would another COVID-19 issue cause more delays and more anxiety?

Would the games be played?

The Huskies, as well as the neighboring athletic teams at Lone Tree High School, were among more than 70 school districts in Iowa that were flattened by COVID-19 quarantines and positive cases and curriculums that went totally online because having in-school classes were just too risky.

Per state rules, when a school district goes online with its learning, then all activities and athletics are halted, including team practice sessions.

Highland went online Nov. 18, two days after the start date for boys basketball practices and one day after everything was called off. Highland had so many players in quarantine that the one day of practice on the 16th of November was really a half practice. Lone Tree began its two-week online period on Nov. 30, but all activities at Lone Tree were called off before Thanksgiving due to positive cases and quarantines.

“It’s just brutal,” Zywiec said. “We don’t have anything in.”

When Zywiec began his first practice with a full team last Thursday night, following a two-hour practice by Highland’s girls basketball team, it was truly a getting-to-know-you kind of a practice at a time when other schools in the region were already playing games.

The Huskies went through dribbling drills.

They ran.

They shot free throws.

Eventually, they began running basic offensive plays in four-vs.-four alignments.

This week, it’ll be defense. All week.

Next week, Tuesday, they’ll actually play a game. The Huskies will open the season against Louisa-Muscatine at home. Whether those games are open to the public is up in the air. Currently, per a state mandate, each athlete gets two tickets to disperse. Outside of that, no spectators, no student section.

The Huskies were supposed to start the season against Lone Tree two nights before they actually held this practice on their home court in an otherwise empty and quiet school.

Highland’s girls team was supposed to start the season on Nov. 24 in Keota, but had to cancel.

A preseason scrimmage girls basketball tournament scheduled for Highland was also canceled.

This has become a challenging time, especially for Zywiec, who says for the first time in his career he is coaching a team that has zero returning starters from the previous season. So, not only is he beginning the season in a very basic manner, but he’s starting it more than three weeks late.

“It’s just an interesting time, right now,” Zywiec said.

And the experts tell us it is going to get worse over the next month and a half.

These are not easy times.

Even for a basketball team that just wants to play hoops.

It’ll make for a great story to tell the kids one day when all of this is over.