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Morgan Football Continues to Work, Despite Doubts About Campaign

The high school football season is uncertain across Connecticut, but in Clinton, one thing is definite: The Morgan football team won’t play until school resumes full in-person learning.

Recently, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Committee (CIAC) Board of Control announced that full-contact, 11-on-11 football would not be on the docket this year given the direction from the Department of Health (DPH). That drew the ire of many local athletes, coaches, parents, and fans, leading to protests in the state capitol. Since then, the CIAC and the DPH have met and had productive talks in possibly salvaging a season.

Regardless of the latest news, Huskies’ Head Coach Peter Nye has been preparing his team the same way for the past month. Once the CIAC indicated that the priority would be to have some kind of season for student-athletes to compete in, Coach Nye decided that he would take an approach that coincided with Clinton’s school-reopening plan.

“Since Aug. 13, it really hasn’t affected me, or the parents, or the players much at all. I outlined the plan after the CIAC decided to go forward and the football committee voted not to,” said Nye. “I wanted to design a schedule that dovetailed with the opening of Clinton public schools. CIAC was initially a play at all costs entity. They wanted to play regardless of what the football board voted. They didn’t take the recommendation of the coaches.”

In lieu of a comprehensive plan from the CIAC, Nye decided to take a stand regarding the Huskies. Nye will not have his team play any competitive games until full, in-person learning is available at Morgan.

“I submitted a leave of absence letter that articulated how I was baffled at the CIAC sports plan. They put that in front of the Clinton public schools reopening plan. I said I would take a leave of absence unless we ran a football schedule like the one I laid out,” Nye said. “It’s unfortunate for the kids, but the whole thing has been unfortunate since March. This isn’t the first group. The Clinton public schools plan to play football is in line when all the kids are back at school.”

Nye believes that the CIAC has backed itself into a corner by preemptively deciding that football will not be played in the spring. The spring offers a longer time to monitor Connecticut’s COVID metrics, possibly determine a safe way for schools to be at full or near-full capacity, and perhaps even see a viable vaccine for COVID. Nye believes it is hypocritical to constantly preach how important academics are for student-athletes, and then push a plan for them to compete before completely reopening schools.

“The fact that they didn’t want to do this in the spring is forcing this decision. It’s unpopular. It would be unpopular with me too if I were a kid,” said Nye. “How many times are our kids tested? The answer is zero. Do I tell the kid go to Walgreens and get a test? Are they going to get the test when they are sick? It’s the wild west because of a lack of committed leadership. I’m ready to add sports in when we know there aren’t rising cases.”

Still, the Huskies are able to safely practice and condition safely thanks in part to dividing student-athletes into cohorts. Nye has cohorts named after sled dogs to further emphasize the Huskies’ mascot. The Morgan school has two wings; one wing with freshman and sophomores, while the other contains juniors and seniors. With the school’s reopening plan, students with last names beginning with A-L attend Morgan in person on Monday and Tuesday, while those with last names beginning with M-Z attend school on Thursday and Friday. While students are at Morgan, the freshman-sophomore and junior-senior wings never intermingle. Nye has been conducting separate practices only allowing student-athletes who were in school that day to attend the practice, and his team’s cohorts are divided by grade, the same way they are in school. If not in person, students engage in distanced learning from home, and those students would not attend a Huskies’ practice. Nye is confident that there is little chance of COVID transmission that way, and if so, any contact tracing can be quickly implemented. Any further contact with other teams who may not have as stringent policies could be a detriment to everyone’s safety.

“For years, we football coaches have been saying that it’s different than other sports. There’s nothing like it in any other sport,” said Nye. “Now those same people are saying, ‘Why is only football canceled?’ I don’t think you could design a sport that would be a better at facilitating the spread of the virus if you tried.”

Nye would love to see many of his players have the chance to compete. There are leaders showing themselves through these practices, and others who have plenty of talent and skill to display. Players like junior receivers Alex Fratemico, Garret Garbinski, Ethan Ranaudo, and Nick Schmidt.

“Garret Garbinski could play any position on the field. He’s an all-league player at any position, but he caught 60 passes for us last season. If he’s one-on-one, it’s a guaranteed catch,” Nye said. “Alex has a prototypical D-I receiver body. You get people’s attention. He’s a very good basketball player. Huge expectations for him whatever it is. Ethan caught eight touchdown passes in a JV game, and then was on varsity. He’s a great route runner. Nick may be the fastest kid on the team. He’s another receiver who I was looking forward to this year. That’s four receivers who are vicious and tough to handle.”

Nye also wants to see his son, junior quarterback Andrew Nye, get another chance to put up gaudy numbers this year, but he doesn’t want to be reckless in scheduling games just so his son can compete.

“Drew Nye, there’s a kid who threw for 2,000 yards last year. He loves to play, and he does it because he loves the rush and the hype of the touchdown passes,” Coach Nye said. “He wants to play 11-on-11, too. We were scoring a lot of points when he was throwing the ball last year.”

Coach Nye feels especially sorry for his seniors like Dominic Carpenter, Ryan Inglis, and Chris Morris who all may miss out on their final season.

“Ryan Inglis is stepping up to be a leader, and I feel bad for him. His family is a big Morgan football family, and he was all-league last year. Chris Morris is a big lineman, and he would have been a four-year starter. Now he’s courageous enough to a take a role of a running back to catch swing passes out of the backfield,” Nye said. “Dom Carpenter just started playing again last year. He could be a good linebacker with a year like this. He’s still coming to practice and taking leadership roles. That’s everything you coach for. I’m thrilled that he’s taking on all the opportunities to be around his teammates playing something.”

In the line of priorities, playing a sport should be lower than reopening school, according to Nye, and he is willing to be the “bad guy” if it means keeping the community at large safe.

“We as coaches have to set the standard and how to be leaders in the community, not just for ourselves and our sport. That may have to be sacrificed for our state and our nation. Let’s take great care when we reopen,” Nye said. “We got a raw deal here, and it won’t be the last time. I’ll lose time with the kids. I have two kids on the team, too—not that it validates anything—but it’s not like it doesn’t mean something to me. Everyone’s trying to scramble to do something for the kids. I respect that, but I don’t respect that we are putting sports ahead of school.”