Smoke forces school team tryouts indoors

It’s hard to believe how a song written 82 years ago could possibly be relevant to the start of the 2015 high school football season. But it is.

Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach penned “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” for their 1933 musical “Roberta,” and the song was a No. 1 hit for The Platters in 1958.

In 2015, its significance is broader. Smoke gets in your eyes, yes. But the bigger concern is the smoke getting into the lungs of area athletes – especially those who battle conditions like asthma.

Air quality issues resulting from the many fires throughout the area have caused problems during the first few days of fall practices – canceling outdoor workouts and forcing teams indoors.

Smoke now can be added to the list of weather-related conditions that can cancel sporting events, joining such stalwarts as snow and lightning.

It works like this: when the air quality index, which hovers below 50 on a good day, climbs into the unhealthy range (over 150), outdoor practices are canceled and teams shift indoors. Suddenly soccer and volleyball are being played side-by-side in adjoining gyms, football players hit the weights and the film room and cross country runners lay out courses through the school’s halls to get in their mileage.

“We’re relying on a website, www.airnow.gov,” West Valley athletic director Jamie Nilles said. “When it ticks into the unhealthy range, outside practice is canceled.”

At University High, athletic director Ken VanSickle is keeping an eye on the website for the Spokane Regional Clear Air Agency, www.spokanecleanair.org.

“That website updates hourly,” he said. “I was up at 6 a.m. to check the website because our football team was practicing at 7. Our coaches are even starting to tell the kids to keep an eye on www.spokanecleanair.org — if it’s under 150 I’ll see you on the field, if it’s over I’ll see you in the gym.”

Typically coaches look to the heat of summer to help work their teams into shape for the coming season. Proper hydration is the primary concern outside of bumps, strains and contusions.

This year, however, got off on different footing. Area soccer coaches greeted players for Monday’s first practice in the gym because all area schools canceled outdoor workouts.

It’s a challenge to hold tryouts in the gym, especially for a sport like soccer.

The Greater Spokane League issued a league-wide policy last week that puts all of its member schools on the same footing. When air quality is unhealthy, everyone is inside. No GSL football team is getting a competitive advantage by sneaking in an extra outside practice session, and no cross country team is busing to an area with better air quality unless every team does.

But the Great Northern League is different.

“The GSL can do that because all those teams are in the Greater Spokane area,” Nilles said. “The Great Northern League is a little more spread out. Cheney has different issues than we do. I know Clarkston took their football team up on top of the plateau so they could practice in better conditions last week.

“I guess we’re a little more used to that competitive imbalance stuff more. We see that every spring when Clarkston gets a jump start on the rest of us.”

 Area football teams are scheduled to hold season-opening jamborees Friday night, and those events, too, will be dependent on the air quality index, just like practices.

“We have the freshmen starting early at East Valley, so we’ll be making that call about 1 or 2 p.m.,” Nilles said. “We have buses to coordinate, so we’ll need to make that call early.”

The same will be true for the GSL, VanSickle said.

And if smoky conditions continue into next week, similar decisions will have to be made about games.

“The state is keeping an eye on things and we’re concerned with getting kids enough practices to get eligible,” VanSickle said. “We have contingencies in place, too, for kids with asthma and things like that who are more sensitive to air quality conditions. Our coaches are sensitive to that and they can accommodate them when they arise.

“Our coaches met with our trainers the other day to talk about the differences between being exposed to these conditions for a few days and being exposed for a week or more. They went over things to look for and to be aware of.

“We’re just going to adapt.”