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08/23/2020 12:00 AMThe North Haven football team started its preseason conditioning during the first week of July and continued doing so until the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) put all fall sports activities on pause two weeks ago. In between, the CIAC released a plan to begin the fall season on Thursday, Sept. 24, but the chances of that happening are still no guarantee in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Connecticut’s high school football teams were slated to begin participating in organized team activities (OTAs) in groups of no more than 15 people on Aug. 17, using the same guidelines under which they had been doing conditioning. However, those OTAs never took place following the CIAC’s decision to put everything on hold.
On Aug. 10, the CIAC football committee made a recommendation to move the 2020 football season to the spring of 2021, although the CIAC Board of Control essentially negated that recommendation by unanimously voting to continue with its plan to play fall sports. A few days later, after the state’s Department of Health (DPH) made the same recommendation as the football committee, the CIAC switched up and decided to suspend all team activities for fall sports.
Anthony Sagnella has been the head coach of the North Haven football program for the past 23 years, a time during which he’s guided the team to numerous playoff appearances and several winning records, including a mark of 6-4 last fall. Sagnella said he was surprised that the CIAC stopped the conditioning sessions, where athletes were adhering to social distancing guidelines, but added that he’s not surprised the CIAC pushed back larger participation of fall sports in general. As much as he loves football and knows how badly his athletes want to compete, Sagnella isn’t completely convinced that hitting the field is in everyone’s best interest right now.
“Personally, I’m not sure if we should be playing football,” said Sagnella. “If you are worried about spreading it, I feel like football is a sport that violates all the social distancing protocols. So, I feel that if you play it, we will have a problem in terms of spreading it.”
Sagnella knows that the CIAC is in a difficult spot regardless of the outcome, but he’s still concerned that so many things regarding the fall season remain open-ended. Sagnella wishes that the CIAC made a more definitive decision about the preparation schedules for any potential season, instead of changing its mind in a short amount of time.
“If you’re standing with one foot on shore and the other in a canoe, you will probably fall in the water. You have to either get on shore or get in the boat, and I just don’t like the fact that they’re messing around with the emotions of coaches and kids,” Sagnella said. “If we can’t open schools full-time, it may not be wise to try and play sports.”
Coach Sagnella added that if the CIAC’s plan to play football stays intact, then it’s important that the details be finalized as soon as possible. Sagnella feels concerned about the lack of time that his team has had to get prepared for its season opener in comparison to past years, especially after the CIAC halted all the conditioning sessions, which the coach called “perfectly safe,” given the guidelines.
“There is so much planning and preparation that goes into a sports season and, the longer we go, the harder it will be to return and return safely,” Sagnella said. “Our team is nowhere near the level of conditioning that it would have been in previous years, so we are not in great shape right now.”
Even if the CIAC’s current plan comes to pass, Sagnella said he’s unsure if it will even be possible for North Haven to put in the amount of fundamental work that is necessary to play by the time the season is scheduled to kick off.
“You can’t just start playing football,” said Sagnella. “We’ve done about 20 percent of what we would have done in an average year in terms of preparation and scrimmages, and these are things that needed in order to a put team on the field that is fundamentally safe. If you look at the plan that they gave us, it’s OK for a flag football league, but not tackle football.”
There has been plenty of chatter about moving football from the fall to the spring, following the DPH’s recommendation to do so. However, Coach Sagnella does not think that playing football during the spring is a good option due to a number of potential conflicts.
“I don’t think that is the right thing to do. It infringes on other athletes and their seasons. And who’s to say that the spring will be any safer?” Sagnella said. “Playing in the spring and then trying to begin again in August or September—I don’t know if you can do that with football. That’s a lot of wear and tear in five or six months.”
One of the most challenging aspects for Coach Sagnella’s squad as it tries to get ready is that North Haven enters the season with a lack of varsity experience. Sagnella has been pleased with the job that senior captains Pat Lillis and Anthony Vigliotto are doing in terms of leading the team through the early goings. However, Sagnella knows that it’s imperative for his players to get in as many reps as possible in order for North Haven to endure the rigors that come with life on the gridiron.
“This team desperately needed to put in a lot of time with all of the things that we normally schedule in the offseason, because they are so inexperienced. They needed to be in the weight room, they needed to go to a camp or a passing league, and they needed to come in at 6 a.m. five days a week for two hours, instead of three days a week for one hour,” Sagnella said. “We had a big senior class that filled up most of the varsity spots, so we are going to be taking a very inexperienced team into the season if there is a season.”
Vigliotto plays on both the offensive and defensive lines, while Lillis has the ability to play fullback, tight end, linebacker, and defensive end for North Haven. The team’s other returning seniors are Chase DiCarlo, who has been North Haven’s kicker for the past three years; along with James Loda and Taray Smart, Jr., who both play running back and linebacker; John Quintanar, a tight end/safety; and Ryan Ziaks, Vincent Granata, and Arthur Cross, who are all two-way linemen.
Coach Sagnella hopes that these athletes get to play football at some point in the near future. No matter how everything pans out, Sagnella wants the CIAC to take into the account the physical well-being of everyone pertaining to both COVID and otherwise as it makes its final determinations regarding the 2020 campaign.
“We have to be at the level of conditioning to play a varsity game in a competitive league, and we need to right plan for that,” said Sagnella. “If they give me that, I’m OK with that, but if they decide that it’s safer not to play, I’m OK with that, too.”