Harvey’s effects on football

Although most of Gonzales County was able to escape the worst of Hurricane Harvey, the storm still affected sports the past two weeks, especially the three football teams around the area.

Scrimmages were canceled, games were postponed, moved or even canceled, Gonzales, Nixon-Smiley and Shiner St. Paul all will be affected by Harvey.

“Gonzales was awful lucky. I know we had some people with some damage and I hate that, but the damage that was down south and even in La Grange, that whole town got flooded, I hope everybody is back and everybody is safe,” Gonzales Athletic Director Kodi Crane said. “We touched base with our football team constantly throughout the storm. We had some people that got evacuated, heck our coaches moved Coach Carrizales out of his house before the whole thing started. The biggest effect it had on our football team is the lack of practice and the lack of the constant routine. I felt like last Thursday we were in pretty good shape. Then we went Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday without doing anything and we’re going to have to build back to get that shape back. Just the lack of practice, the lack of timing — you didn’t throw, you didn’t catch, you didn’t block, you didn’t have on cleats for five days — it’s the biggest effect we’ve had.”

Nixon-Smiley suffered the same fate, with NSCISD pushing their first day of school to Wednesday.

“It’s a little unorthodox,” Nixon-Smiley Athletic Director Carlton McKinney said. “Could have been a whole lot worse. We want to make the best of a difficult situation.”

The lack of practices as well as the cancellations of scrimmages will lead to some “learning on the job” situations for all involved.

The Apaches, having to play against Orange Grove on Saturday, will be going into Week 1 with just one scrimmage under their belt and two less practices than their opponents.

The Mustangs will have to travel at least 160 miles to take on an opponent that wasn’t originally on the schedule.

The Cardinals’ game against Yorktown was canceled. Shiner St. Paul Athletic Director Jake Wachsmuth was in search of a scrimmage, but announced Thursday the team will have to just have a bye week, with no opponent to face. That makes it two weeks without live competition.

Week 1 can get ugly early on.

Thankfully, records don’t count until district begins. More importantly, these next two weeks will be about getting back into that rhythm.

When I went on vacation in June, the first day I came back was chaotic. I was only gone for five work days yet somehow those off days totally messed up my flow. It took me a few days before I was back in the rhythm of things.

I am merely a reporter, plus other boring newspaper responsibilities that I do. It’s not the hardest job in the world. Tedious, but not hard. Don’t tell my boss though.

Now imagine being a high school student, having to not only get back in the groove of school work, but then afterwards get into the workouts and other athletic activities.

Just like Crane said above, it’s going to take time to get that shape back, both physically and mentally. Good thing it’s just the first week of games, where records don’t matter. Obviously, teams want to win. That’s the point of competition. But with Harvey throwing everything into turmoil, I imagine coaching staffs will be using this week of games as a way to get back into their regular routines.