After 22 weeks without practice, Kansas high school athletics are back
This spring, Andover linebacker Josh Sparks was forced to miss his junior track season, and he watched his senior friends graduate without a goodbye to high school athletics.
Having risen to senior status for the 2020-21 school year, Sparks knows his final prep football season isn’t guaranteed, but Monday was. Kansas high school sports returned to organized practice for the first time in more than 22 weeks Monday, and across the Wichita area — even if everything gets shut down because of COVID-19 — people were smiling.
“We’ve had a bunch of stuff leading up to today, and I’ve been getting some work in with some of my buddies by ourselves,” Sparks said. “But it’s great to make this official. It’s a little different. The season has officially started after worrying about it for so long.”
For months, there was a cloud of doubt that Kansas either wouldn’t see high school football until the spring or not at all until the fall of 2021. When the Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) executive board voted July 28, it granted the right for programs to start on time.
Although each school district can, and is, making its own decisions about whether to play, Sparks said he isn’t worried too much about what tomorrow or next week or next month may bring.
“I’ve thought about it, but you just have to keep playing like that’s not going to happen,” Sparks said. “If (a cancellation) doesn’t happen and you weren’t prepared for the game, you’ll hesitate. You just got to put your head down every day.”
Sparks and the Andover Trojans are going through a coaching change this season. Former Garden Plain coach Ken Dusenbury, who went 42-11 in five seasons with the Owls, has moved across the Wichita area to replace Cade Armstrong. Dusenbury said the transition has had its challenges amid the pandemic, but Monday made it better.
“It surprised me how much I really enjoyed this,” Dusenbury said. “First practice: You want everything to be right. You’re worried about physicals, COVID check-ins, equipment issues, who’s here, who’s late. You’re worried about it for months. Then when you come out here, it was just a lot of fun.”
A few miles away at Wichita Southeast, senior quarterback Jakobi Livingston was back competing for the first time since his junior baseball season was canceled.
“Today was amazing,” Livingston said. “Hopefully we get to keep going. I don’t want it to finish off like this. Just pray every day and hope we’re back tomorrow.”
Livingston, coach Taylor Counts and the Golden Buffaloes are looking to improve from a 3-6 season in which they lost their first two games by a combined five points to Kapaun Mt. Carmel and Wichita South. Livingston said it was great to be back with the entire team Monday and that time is what the team needs most.
“We need team bonding,” Livingston said. “We need to come closer as a group, and we’ll start to get better. We have a lot of new people coming in, just got to build the program and start with this 2021 group.”
Every team in Kansas has its unique storylines heading into the 2020 season, but all share one: dealing with COVID-19. After practice Monday, Counts and Dusenbury mentioned the delay of getting out to practice because of the precautions needed before the players hit the field.
Still, everyone on the fields Monday would take the opportunity to practice despite the hurdles they have to jump through to get there, Counts said.
“We started camp by talking about how, ‘Every day, you don’t know if you’ll get to play again, so treat every day like it’s going to be your last and make the most of what you got,’ ” Counts said. “You feel bad for the seniors, but you want them to get every rep they can.
“Every time we get permission to be out here, we’re going to be out here.”
