Shrine Bowl practices are underway in Topeka. What are the changes ... what’s the vibe?
.JPG "2020 Shrine Bowl West Team members line up before the snap during one of the first practices in Topeka.")
Not even a global pandemic could take the juice out of the Kansas Shrine Bowl.
As the West squad gathered around high school football coach Tommy Beason after its second practice in Topeka, Tony Caldwell cocked his head back and belted a classic, “West Side” chant that has been a staple at every Shrine Bowl the past few years.
Caldwell, a former Valley Center two-way lineman and state wrestling champion, is one of 72 athletes set to compete in the 47th annual Kansas Shrine Bowl. It is already an event unlike any other because COVID-19 cases are spiking across Kansas.
B.J. Harris, executive director of the Shrine Bowl, said players’ temperatures are checked twice daily this week during practice. Media arriving at the practices have their temperatures checked, too.
Players leave their equipment outside to be disinfected every night. They have assigned seating on the bus rides to and from practices and team bonding events.
If athletes aren’t playing football, in their hotel room or eating, they have masks on. And when they are back at their hotel in downtown Topeka, they see hand-sanitizing stations every 15 feet or so.
The players may as well have substituted any cologne they packed for a new scent: They all smell like rubbing alcohol, said Scotti Easter, a recent graduate and defensive back from Andale.
“It’s still an amazing time,” Easter said. “It’s just different. It’s a lot different.”
Although the 2020 experience is stricter than usual, no one is complaining, Harris said. There is a general sense of hope that everything goes smoothly this weekend, including Saturday’s game: No positive cases among the players, no word from local health officials that the game must be canceled and of course a general flattening of the COVID-19 curve.
Beason said even though he believes his team and the Shrine Bowl are doing everything possible to go about the week’s events the right way, “It’s still fingers crossed by 10 o’clock Saturday night.”
Seemingly none of the players or coaches involved in this year’s Shrine Bowl are hesitating to play their part in making the 2020 event happen. Harris noted that this year’s group has already made history.
“We had 36 (players) show up on the East team and 36 show up on the West team on the first day of practice,” Harris said. “I’m not sure when the last time that has happened.”
It’s still possible that local health officials call off the Shrine Bowl, but the players understand how lucky they are just to have the chance to participate so far, said Phoenix Smith, a former Bishop Carroll defensive lineman.
“It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever been a part of,” Smith said. “Everything is so up in the air at all times as to whether it’s going to keep going. We don’t know if we’re going to make it to the next practice.
“It’s just such a different feeling, because each practice could literally be our last practice we’re ever going to have for this — our last high school practice.”