Telegraph Sports Reporter Tom KIng.

Saturday night, checking passes at the gym entrance at Bedford High School for the NHIAA Division I high school finals, Bedford girls basketball coach Kevin Gibbs was very upbeat.

“We’re working toward a season,” he said, optimism in his voice. “This (meaning volleyball) was the test case. Let’s hope.”

Will someone please relay that to the Nashua Board of Education?

The Board had a layup this past Monday night, and its members failed to even hit the backboard.

Totally ridiculous.

No one covers all the bases better than Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras, and her presentation to the BOE for the winter sports plan for North and South High Schools and the city’s three middle schools did just that.

Low risk, high risk, medium risk divisions for sports. No locker rooms. Skills and drills in open gyms starting Nov. 30, tryouts Dec. 14 and games no earlier than Jan. 15. Those are just some of the highlights; it’s all online at the Board of Ed if you want to check it out.

Board members thanked Gingras for her efforts, etc., yet then, there was a “but.”

The board voted to table any action on sports until the group makes a decision on whether to go remote, in person, or hybrid for classes. It didn’t say no, it just, well, didn’t say anything.

Sure, education is the priority, but this should have been an easy, immediate call. The New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association and Division I athletic directors did 90 percent of the work for you, board members.

Even your superintendent, Dr. Jahmal Mosely, tried to convince you that winter sports indoors would be nowhere near close to creating the crowd in a school building that full classes would.

“Apples and oranges,” Mosely correctly called it, noting that the different teams are separated. “They’re not all coming into contact with each other.”

No, muss, no fuss; athletics could have and should have been given the go-ahead. Instead, the members left it in limbo – foolishly. The in-person learning debate was even more excruciating, the issue sent to committee, etc. Look, that’s very important in this pandemic world and worthy of the time.

But this body could have taken care of one piece of important business.

Were they under a rock for the fall? Nashua was one of the few districts that had no positives. Local health officials, led by Bobbie D. Bagley, were in constant contact with Gingras all fall. Often several times a day. If there was a segment of the community that was having an issue, it was discussed and sometimes games were canceled.

That will no doubt be the same this winter. And if any student-athlete or his or her parents don’t feel safe about competing, then they have no obligation to do so. That was certainly the case with a few athletes this fall.

So now kids are scratching their heads. How long do we have to wait? When can we do workouts? Those would be similar to the summer workouts coaches and athletes said were so valuable. It won’t be Nov. 30, that’s the night of the board meeting.

If approved, Gingras said earlier this week things would go right into registration, then impact testing, and then tryouts on Dec. 14.

Bad move by a group that really, at least part of it, seems to be completely out of touch. Volleyball certainly proved you can compete indoors safely, if masks and social distancing as well as very strict spectator limits are employed and enforced.

Safety is paramount; there is no argument with that. And safety was rule No. 1 during the fall season in Nashua, and would certainly be the same way for the winter.

In fact, it still is. With virus numbers rising, spectators for home events in the city were cut from four to two tickets per student athlete. And still no visiting fans. That cut the crowd in half for Saturday’s scheduled Division I football semifinal at Stellos between Nashua North and Salem.

You just hope this collection of board members don’t rob students of the chance to compete. They should take into serious consideration the words of some coaches after games this fall.

“They needed some normalcy in their life,” Campbell girls soccer coach Kevin Brassard said of his players after the season ended last weekend, albeit with Division III title game loss to Hopkinton. “They needed to be able to play and hang out.”

Other coaches will tell you the same thing. Listen to them.

There was no real reason for this delay. If you agree, let this group know it loud and clear over the next two weeks.

“We’d all be willing to do whatever it takes to play winter sports,”student rep Stephen Norris, who played for the North boys soccer team in the fall, said at the virtual meeting. “Whether we have to wear a mask, whether we have to sanitize the balls between quarters. We’ll be willing to do whatever it takes.”

Makes sense here. Too bad it didn’t make immediate sense to a local political body last Monday night.

Let’s hope it does over the next couple of weeks.

Newsletter