PRE-COVID TALK — Martin Luther/Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman head volleyball coach Paul Steinhaus talks with Jaguar players Abby Calkins (13), Kambria Steinhaus (green jersey) and Emily Stauter (back left) during a timeout during the 2019 season in Northrop. Paul Steinhaus has had to deal with the three school districts’ policies concerning COVID-19 protocol this season. (Photo by Greg Abel/Sentinel Archives)

NORTHROP — Changing protocols and schedules as well as needing to be ready to adjust at a moment’s notice have defined the fall high school sports seasons.

Martin Luther/Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman Jaguars head volleyball coach Paul Steinhaus said many of the biggest changes all add up to needing a new way to teach sportsmanship.

“The biggest changes for me as a coach, certainly, are all the external protocols, that and restrictions and/or requirements that are tied into the procedures now,” Steinhaus said. “They’re not overly team friendly. I mean, you’re not even supposed to have huddles, for goodness sakes. The sportsmanship dynamic is certainly changed. There’s no shaking of hands, there’s no good game, there’s no captain’s meeting before games.

“In terms of teaching what sportsmanship is, hopefully, this is not a long-term way to practice things because we’re not able to teach sportsmanship like it should be taught, and we’re not able to even teach team like it should be taught because everybody seems to be a germ.”

Steinhaus said since Martin Luther is a private school, it has a little extra flexibility about certain regulations, but because it’s combined with public schools for each sport, that flexibility isn’t uniform.

One of the biggest examples of this flexibility came during Martin County’s recent COVID-19 distance learning.

“Well, because we’re a private school, Martin Luther kids were in session the whole time,” Steinhaus said. “So the Martin Luther kids, they had practice as normal, whatever that word means. But both Granada-Huntley-East Chain and Truman, (GHEC) didn’t really go into a complete distance learning format, truly, but then their athletes weren’t allowed to come to practice.”

The long break continued the constant changes that have plagued the fall sports season.

From volleyball and football going to a practice season with plans to play games in the spring, to starting the season when a normal volleyball season would be coming to an end.

Steinhaus said the changes on when the season is played had major effects for some.

“So what that did is we missed our first three matches of the season,” Steinhaus said of Martin County’s distance learning. “We ended up playing our first match of the season after what would have been the normal first-round playoff game of a normal season, so almost like our season could have been over at that point. And we’re finally getting to our first match of the year.

“We did have one athlete who … wasn’t released because of a knee injury, but she could practice under a limited basis. So then, I mean, just very simply her season ended very abruptly when we went straight into a competitive season. And she had to step away because she wasn’t cleared for a competitive season.”

Athletes and coaches aren’t the only people affected by the constantly changing season though. Officials have had to be ready for a match to be called off or to be sent off to a different location at any time, and bus companies have needed to stay in constant contact with athletic directors and coaches.

“It sounds goofy, but the bus company has to be ridiculously flexible to, in one moment, you’re going to one place and the next moment you’re going someplace else, or, you know, on how all those things change for the bus company, is all part of the communication lines, and sequence and scramble as well,” Steinhaus said.

One example of a big mid-week change came right at the delayed start of the Jaguars’ volleyball season. Steinhaus said because the Minnesota State High School League set the schedule to have no more than two volleyball games per week, it has been extremely difficult to reschedule matches missed for COVID-19 reasons.

In one week, the Jaguars played Tuesday and had their second matchup of the week scheduled for Thursday, but the team they were set to play entered the week in distance learning, so the Jaguars had to reschedule, Steinhaus said. The team found a new squad to play a couple of days later, but while the rescheduling was going on, the Jaguars’ original Thursday opponent returned to school and competition, so the work put in to find a new opponent was for naught.

Alongside the constant scheduling changes, Steinhaus said one of the other biggest effects on this year is the regulations on fans. He said the number of fans allowed changes from school to school, some offer visiting fans restricted seating, some none at all. At best, the high school league has said each athlete receives two tickets to a competition, but Steinhaus said that can leave some people feeling left out.

“If each student athlete only gets two tickets, what do you do if you’ve got mom and dad and each one has a step parent? Then all of a sudden you got four and that doesn’t include grandmas and grandpas,” Steinhaus said. “So there’s some hurt feelings in that limitation. Everybody kind of sees that writing on the wall. So I haven’t really had to deal with any negative phone calls or emails or communications at all, but occasionally you’ll hear the disappointment components.”

Steinhaus said needing to go through all these changes has made for a lot of awkwardness, whether through families, scheduling, busses or officiating, but there is a silver lining to it all.

“Everybody has experienced significant losses in seasons and games, all the way back to march,” Steinhaus said. “The fact that we can play, and we can make that a center point of this being a great privilege we have today because tomorrow is never really a guarantee,” Steinhaus said. “The way things have been and are going, I think that’s really been all the motivation anybody needs at this point.”