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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 8, 2020)
6A | SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 2020 | SIUSLAW NEWS FLIGHT from page 1A have stepped up to pro- vide a safe place for some of Oregon’s most vulnerable children to go — provid- ing academic support, so- cial-emotional skill build- ing and basic necessities,” Trent said. “These programs help bridge the gap between school and home and have expanded their services during this crisis, providing free food and meal delivery to families in need as well as online, at-home educational, recreational and prevention programming for youth and parents.” Trent, Tomeny and mem- bers of Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue were masked or wearing face shields during the Friday morning class ses- sions yesterday. This is just one of many differences be- tween this year’s classes and those preceding. All guests were checked for temperatures and asked a series of health related ques- tions, then sanitized and al- lowed to enter the airplane hangar at Florence Munici- pal Airport now serving as a classroom. “The hangar remains open with expanded space be- tween tables and only two kids per table, six feet apart,” Tomeny said. In addition, the students walk with Boys and Girls SPORTS from page 1A But despite the uncertainty of the future, the very exis- tence of a schedule for sports is a welcome relief to athletes and educators looking to get back in the game. “We didn’t lose an entire fall season like we did the spring season, which I think is a breath of fresh air and some- thing to be optimistic about,” Johnson said. “Going forward, I hope we can put things to- gether for kids to play the sports that they love. Right now, hope is something that we can all use a little dose of.” OSAA broke the sports schedule into four seasons, the first of which begins Aug. 17, 2020, and ends Jan. 3, 2021. No contests will be scheduled, with the season treated like summer. “Teams are able to get to- gether and practice and have optional workouts,” Johnson said. “A lot of teams didn’t have the opportunity to get together and practice during the summer because of safe- ty issues. I think the hope is that it can be an open period for schools and teams to do off-season preparation.” But before the practices can begin, the district has to be cleared to allow onsite educa- tion, which is tied to a num- ber of state, county and local metrics surrounding COVID transmission rates. “Right now, if you look at the numbers in the county, we can’t get kids together,” John- son said. In September, Siuslaw School District is starting with distance education only, with a return to onsite impossible till at least October. In the meantime, coaches are assigning at-home work- outs to ensure students are physically fit. “Some kids are involved in those and are trying to be fit and prepared. Other kids probably aren’t, which is fine Club staff to the airport each day, since they are unable to take a bus. “And we can’t take them on any field trips, so we have had to ask sup- porting orga- nizations to come to us,” Tomeny add- ed. “Many of them have, such as the Coast Guard, the Flor- ence Police De- partment, the fire department and many won- derful speakers.” The two Air Academy lead- ers also wanted to provide more detail to concerned residents and parents in or- der to answer questions and criticism they have received on social media platforms. It was clear during this in- terview that a deep sense of the seriousness and a height- ened sense of caution was being felt by both Trent and Tomeny. “It is interesting to me — with all the discussions about inequities that are dominat- ing the media, and learning that inequity is higher in too — we’re all going through so much right now,” Johnson said. “Obviously, we’d all love to get together, but we’re being cautious and safe and waiting for a break in all this, which is something everyone wants to see happen. If we can social distance, stay home, wash our hands, limit our gatherings — anything is on the table. The best way for us to have sports in school is to have those numbers go down.” If all goes well, the “season two” will begin Dec. 28, 2020, with two weeks of practices for traditional winter sports including wrestling, basket- ball and swimming. Then, on Jan. 11, the very first games are scheduled to begin. As for what the games will look like, it’s currently unclear. “Talk about a blank slate,” Johnson said. “It would be great for me to say that by Jan- uary, everything’s going to be fine and we’ll have full gym- nasiums and cheerleaders, but we won’t really know that un- til things get closer.” Also unknown are how league scheduling and cham- pionships will be handled. “All of those things are go- ing to come out after admin- istrators, coaches and OSAA sit, meet and negotiate,” John- son said. “How the nuts and bolts fit together remains to be seen.” As the championships for season two wraps up, “season three” will begin practices. This season will be traditional fall sports, including soccer, football, volleyball and cross country. The overlap could create some scheduling issues for students involved in multiple sports. “If you have a three-sport athlete, there’s a lot of pressure on those kids to be every- thing,” Johnson said. “It can get tricky. Our athletic depart- ment is going to work to do what’s best for all of our kids to get an opportunity to pre- the summer than any other time of year, that message has been lost in the COVID conversation,” Trent stated. “Mental wellness in kids has never been higher than it is right now. Now, more than ever, it is important for kids to be able to have social in- teraction in a safe way.” Safety has been para- mount for all participants of the academy. Both Trent and Tomeny are attempting to balance their own estima- tions of the overall risk, not only to the students, but to as touring the airport and learning to using re- mote control airplanes, drones, mod- el rockets and more. Any out- side partic- ipants are screened in with tem- peratures and ques- tionnaires — PHOTOS BY MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS and provid- (Above) Members of ed plenty of Siuslaw Valley Fire and space to keep Rescue and (left) Florence separate. Police Department visit the The stu- Florence Air Academy to dents seemed talk to students about to be unaf- career opportunities in avi- fected by the ation and beyond. commotion surrounding themselves and the speakers their activities and their at- participating in the course tendance was apparently just this summer. another shift in what is con- According to Trent, this sidered normal. year’s cadets are considered “We have 10 kids this year a closed group, similar to between the ages of 10 and a family unit or friends at 14,” Tomeny said. “After the a restaurant. They are all first two days, it has been checked for fever and symp- obvious that they are having toms multiple times a day a great time, especially after and are kept apart. Mask struggling through the last requirements are similar to several months. All of their those used in restaurants and parents know what we’re outdoors. doing, understand the mini- In addition, many of the mal risks involved, and have Air Academy events are held signed permission slips. outside in the open air, such “We all know that there are people in the communi- ty that are scared and don’t know what to do because they can’t find accurate data or really understand the risk. But there are many others who understand the mag- nitude of the risk — under- stand it, and are more than willing to continue living a somewhat normal life with special precautions. So, we fully realize what we’re fac- ing, but when you start to work with kids who are real- ly struggling, it’s obvious that it is all worth it.” One big focus of the Air Academy has been empow- ering participants to consid- er life after school and what students can accomplish. “It is equally important to introduce teens to career op- portunities,” Trent said. “Out of this group of Air Academy Cadets, only one had any idea of what he wants to do after graduation. So, this is the opportunity to explore careers in not only aviation, but many others where you can make a living wage. This is where we can connect kids to people and resources to help them get introduced into a career opportunity.” For more information on the Florence Air Academy and other after school pro- grams, contact Boys and Girls Club of Western Lane County at 541-902-0304 and bgcwlc.org. pare for whatever season the kids see fit, and do the best we can as a community to allow for the best opportunity to get prepared.” “Season four” practices will begin in May and run into June, weeks beyond the typical sports schedule. This season will be particularly im- portant for students as it rep- resents spring sports such as track and field, baseball and softball. Last year’s spring season was the only athletics to be completely cancelled due to the shutdowns. When ath- letes return to their respective fields, it would be the first time in two years. “I think if you’re a fresh- man or sophomore, and you lost a whole year of devel- opment, obviously that puts you in a tough spot,” Johnson said. “There’s no question — the more chances kids have to compete and practice and participate, the better their chances are to develop.” It can also create a setback for students who were looking to use sports as a way to earn scholarships, particularly stu- dents who last played as soph- omores. “This year’s upcoming se- niors who didn’t have a junior season didn’t have a body of work for that year to show- case what their skills were,” Johnson said. “College coach- es aren’t stupid, they can look at people who were successful as sophomores, and they can project forward, but it’s diffi- cult. We had some kids who were juniors this past year who were going to have fan- tastic track seasons. There’s no question that the better their track seasons were, more heads were going to be turned. The same could be said for any sport. The junior year is impactful.” But the good news is that everybody in the country is facing the same challenges. “Nobody conducted any sports this spring,” Johnson said. “I don’t think anybody has an unfair advantage. But I think the pressure is going to be on some of the college coaches to look at kids who were on their radars as soph- omores, and just figure out if they were going to have big improvements.” Still, Johnson said that if Siuslaw is to start a spring season, school staff will do ev- erything they can to make the most of it. “We all have our unique challenges that meet our par- ticular activity, but that’s on the coach and the players to make the best of a situation that’s obviously way less than ideal,” he said. And there’s still a possibili- ty that many of the scheduled seasons could be postponed or cancelled all together, de- pending on what occurs with the virus. For those seniors last year that didn’t get to compete in the spring, it was difficult. “At a micro level, our stu- dent athletes who lost senior seasons, that was a big deal for them,” Johnson said. “They spend years and years prepar- ing for that mythical senior season. Having it evaporate is really hard.” However, for the athletic director, it’s important to keep the current moment in per- spective. “I think it’s important to understand this year has been catastrophic for people,” John- son said. “People have lost the ability to work and businesses have shut down, the economy has slowed, people have lost their lives. I don’t want to per- petuate that not having sports is catastrophic to the level of what other people have had to deal with in their lives.” Johnson’s own son, Kiger, was supposed to finish his track and field high school ca- reer last spring, but it was cut short. “We sat in the same house, We were full force, preparing for a season.’ They had plans and they were doing it. They were just looking for answers like we are. My answer was, ‘We’re going to keep training and we’re going to do things a little differently this fall to pre- pare for competition season.’” Johnson stayed positive, saying the students will use the extra time to train and focus. “We’ll try and do it better than everybody else,” he said. “You can focus on studies in the fall, and figure out how to deal with the new normal in terms of distance learning. We’ll just go from there. We’ll make the best of the situation.” We are open and ready to assist you! me teaching classes, him tak- ing them,” Johnson recalled. “We looked at each other and said, ‘Wouldn’t you rather be in school?’ But we couldn’t, and we did the best we could. He said, ‘I don’t want it to end this way,’ but at the same time, it’s like, he graduated from high school and was able to make the best of a bad situa- tion. That’s what he did.” And that’s what the coach- es, athletes and parents of Siu- slaw School District will con- tinue to do. “I got a couple of texts yes- terday from students who heard the season was moved to February,” Johnson said. “They were like, ‘What now? We’ve got you COVERED Serving Florence since 1990 business • homeowners • auto • life • health • medicare plans A SK US ABOUT M ULTIPLE P OLICY D ISCOUNTS ! Contact Angela, Jodi or Paul to discuss your policy needs. 875 Hwy 101 • Florence, OR • (541) 997-3466 www.AbelInsuranceAgency.com Buying or Selling? I can help. 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