Padecky: Casa Grande football coach preaches caution for return to the field

PETALUMA — Just as parents watch their kids to see how they are living their lives, the kids also watch the parents to see how they are living theirs. This shared microscope will never be passed back and forth more frequently or with as much interest as the one right now held by Andrew and John Antonio.

This microscope is being passed between son and father, between player and coach, between the one who is learning and the one who, by job title, is supposed to know it all. Life with a teenager rarely is a nice, snuggly cup of hot chocolate. Rather, it can be a boil-over-the-edge hot, steamy mess that scalds feelings and leaves sensitivities raw and inflamed.

“I never wanted to coach my kid,” said John, 43, Casa Grande’s head coach, about his 14-year-old son. “But after talking to Rick O’Brien, Rick Krist and Steve Ellison, I changed my mind.”

Those three Petaluma-area coaching legends, however, never had to worry if a season would be played, never had to think about a pandemic, lungs turning to cement. They never had to judge risk beyond a concussion or a broken bone, those containing enough trauma by themselves.

O’Brien, Krist and Ellison never had to think, much less say, the following sentence.

“No one wants to play football anymore than me,” Antonio said, “but the way it’s looking now, I’d say we probably won’t be playing until January.”

Antonio is a fast talker by nature. But that last sentence sounded like an auctioneer trying to catch a bus.

“I am nervous,” he said, “in case you can’t tell by my voice.”

Much evidence supports his anxiety. Dr. Anthony Fauci said last Thursday that unless football players can be insulated from the community and be tested every day, the people who run the sport should not consider playing again until 2021. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases called it playing “in a bubble.” Fauci was referring to the NFL, but it should be applied to all levels of organized football.

How would a high school football player be insulated from the community?

“They go home to their families,” Antonio said. “Their families may have members with compromised immune systems who also go out in public. They have family members who go to work, to school, out to restaurants for dinner, and then they come home.”

Social distancing is being preached these past months as if it’s a passage from the Bible. So how does one socially distance themselves playing football? The National Federation of State High School Associations compiled a three-category list, assessing risk factors of different sports: Low, Moderate and Higher. The sports in the Higher Risk category were wrestling, boys lacrosse, competitive cheer, dance and ... football.

To put it simply, if you socially distance playing football, the final score will be like a meaningless NBA All-Star game, 150-145. And that would be with a running clock. You could save money, too, because you wouldn’t need helmets or pads.

Dr. Fauci needn’t look far to see the impact of COVID-19 already in sports. MLB has shut down its spring training sites. Three Tampa Bay Buccaneers have tested positive. College athletes in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama have tested positive. The New England Patriots have offered those season ticket holders with elevated risk profiles to use their 2020 tickets for the 2021 season. Twenty-nine states report a spike in virus cases.

Into this swirl of uncertainty add Andrew and John Antonio. Antonio is well aware of parents being uncomfortable with their sons playing football. In his email to parents of the approximately 150 kids in the program, Antonio has acknowledged their trepidation: “I do not want you to feel obligated or you must sacrifice their health to be there.”

In one respect, that last sentence sounds like any sentence a coach would make. And should. Antonio’s, however, comes with some added weight. His son, an incoming freshman, is now in his program. It does not alter his concern. It deepens it.

“I would never put any of my kids at (COVID-19) risk,” Antonio said. “I couldn’t do that. I could never live with myself.”

Make no mistake, he couldn’t live in Petaluma, either. Antonio is Petaluma in a very real sense. He has spent all but two years in this city. He played football and baseball for Gary Galloway at St. Vincent. He was a Petaluma cop for 20 years. About the only thing Antonio doesn’t do is moo like a cow or cluck like a chicken. Otherwise he’s Petaluma to the marrow.

“Of the 150 families in the program,” Antonio said, “I probably know 125 of them.”

Antonio has in place protocols to be used once on-field practice begins. Two entry points to the field where temperatures will be taken. No more than 10 to a position group with at least six feet of spacing. No contact during drills. Every kid has his own water bottle. Hand sanitizer is everywhere. The field will be sectioned off in quadrants. Footballs cleaned if they changed hands.

What if one of the kids tests positive?

The kid would wait 20 minutes. If the temperature is still above 100 degrees, the player would be sent home. “Could be the flu,” Antonio said, “for some of the symptoms are alike. But we can’t take any chances.” So the other nine kids in that position group would be sent home as well, quarantined for 14 days. If it happens during the season, with all defensive backs out of practice, as an example, that would mean two games would be canceled or scheduled for a later date because of an incomplete team.

“That’s right,” Antonio said.

Antonio and his son both have allergy-induced asthma. If that makes him a cautious parent, what his aunt went through in March makes him a blinking red light.

“My aunt was in the hospital for two weeks with the virus,” Antonio said. “She’s fine now, but she told me she wouldn’t wish this on her worst enemy. She said she felt like she had the plague.”

The stark image of his aunt flat on her back and helpless, Antonio can’t walk away from that thought anymore than he could walk away from exercising due diligence. He doesn’t know of one high school coach in the area who would knowingly put a kid at risk, but he knows winning sometimes can drive a human to irrational acts. The push to succeed is that strong.

“But if you’re a parent and you know of such a coach, would you let your kid play for that coach? Of course you wouldn’t,” Antonio said. “Look, we (coaches) are very competitive. But we remember this is football. The superintendent in this district and in all districts everywhere have a lot on their minds right now, and football is down on the list of priority concerns.”

So if that day comes and Antonio needs to address his team, that January is the proposed re-start providing there’s not a second surge or even a continuation of a first one, Antonio will see 150 Andrews out there.

Antonio will see the stares and moist eyes and probably a face or two poised to anger. He will want to ease their pain and he knows he can’t. These are teenagers, still considered kids by law, and now they will be forced to take a seat in the adult world.

Antonio will tell them straight up. He’ll show disappointment, frustration, sadness. But he won’t show theater. This will not be a TV scene from a crime drama. Life goes on, and so the kids will take the lead they’ve been given. Being a role model doesn’t always come with wow moments, high fives and fist bumps.

To comment write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.

Editor’s Note: A photo caption attached to an earlier version of this story incorrectly described the date of a spring football camp at Casa Grande High School. The photo was taken in 2019.