Damien High is one of the premier boys basketball programs in the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire, and it usually hosts The Classic, one of the biggest post-Christmas tournaments in Southern California.
But with the high school basketball season seemingly on life support due to the strict guidelines for playing indoor sports during the coronavirus pandemic, there is one way to pull that plug.
Damien coach Mike LeDuc said his team is prepared to play a full season outdoors.
Yes, that’s right, outdoors.
Last week, the California Department of Public Health revised its guidelines for youth sports to allow outdoor team sports to begin playing if their county reached a case rate of 14 per 100,000.
On Tuesday, Los Angeles County met that criteria with a case rate of 12.3, which will allow high school football to begin playing games as early as March 12, and allows boys and girls soccer, boys and girls water polo, baseball and softball to begin soon as well.
However, indoor sports such as basketball, volleyball and wrestling face a much steeper hurdle by being in the state’s hardest-to-reach tier, yellow for minimal risk.
Those indoor sports can’t be played until case positivity rates are 1.9 or fewer per 100,000, which is a tough marker to reach.
So, coaches in those sports are looking for ways to play outdoors, and Damien basketball is saying count us in.
Damien does not have outdoor hardcourts on its campus, but they’re building an all-weather, all-purpose sports court on one of its tennis courts so that it can play games outside, LeDuc said.
LeDuc says he hopes basketball and the other indoor sports will get clearance to play indoors in the next month or two, but if not the Spartans are prepared to play a full 28-game season outdoors if they must.
He believes there are several schools that will do the same thing if that’s the only option.
High school boys and girls basketball can start on March 12.
“Our school has been very supportive of what we want to do, and we are planning on playing games outside,” LeDuc said. “We will build an all-weather court and hopefully next week, we can start putting together a schedule to start making it happen. I believe a lot of schools will do this. We don’t have much of a choice, and this is one way we can have a season.”
LeDuc said he isn’t looking at this as an opportunity to play a bunch of exhibition games, these games would count like any other.
“We have a chance to play a full CIF season, and that’s what this would be,” LeDuc said. “They would be outdoor, real games. The scores would matter. We will update MaxPreps. We are hoping at some point we could play inside, so we will probably watch how many games we schedule outside because you can only play 28 games, but we want to play a full schedule, no doubt about it.”
LeDuc believes there will be strong support for playing outdoors.
“I believe so, I haven’t talked to that many coaches about it, but the ones I’ve talked too, about 90 percent of them want to do the same thing,” LeDuc said. “Right now, only L.A. County and Orange County can play outdoors (due to the new CDPH criteria). We’re hoping that San Bernardino County, Ventura and Riverside County get the OK to play, too, and then we can really start looking at making schedules.
“But yeah, for a season, I think it could be a great experience for the kids.”
LeDuc went on to say that playing outdoors isn’t foreign to high school players, and that it could bring a different kind of excitement.
“Some of the best games you ever watched were at Laguna Beach, Venice Beach, and you hear about those games at Ruker Park (in New York),” LeDuc said. “Obviously, we all want to play indoors, but that’s not possible right now, and until it is, this is how we can play a season. So, yeah, we’re playing. One way or another, we’re having our season and the kids are excited about it.”
Los Altos is one of the premier public schools in the San Gabriel Valley. When told about Damien’s plans, coach Jeff Lucas said he would consider it too, if his school district allows for it.
“I have heard of a few schools trying to do that,” Lucas said of playing basketball outdoors. “I think most people will consider it. It’s not like these kids are foreign to playing on sports courts. There are sports courts everywhere.
“For some districts it could be a financial thing, and there could be other (hurdles). But if we could, sure, it’s something we would look into as well.”
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