By Michael Letendre
Once the spring campaign for scholastic sports got underway this past Saturday, a cold realization was thrust upon several athletes in Connecticut.
The window for a make-up football and wrestling campaign was truly gone and several seniors never got their just due on the gridiron or on the mats due to COVID-19.
In Bristol, that meant both the wrestling programs at Central and Eastern had a talented array of senior grapplers that couldn’t finish out their scholastic careers.
This should have never gone down this way and more than a couple coaches held similar beliefs.
“It’s just heartbreaking, it really is for these kids,” said Eastern wrestling coach Bryant Lishness. “And I truly do not agree with [the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s] decision. I don’t know…I just don’t agree on how they handled it. I truly don’t believe they’re following numbers and they’re following science. I really truly don’t. They say they are, but I just don’t see it.”
“None of what they’re doing really makes sense to me when so many other states across the country have opened up for sports for these kids and they’re giving them opportunities.”
What’s the difference?
The CIAC had plenty of chances to reverse course and attempt to get scholastic wrestling off the ground.
Other indoor sports saw their seasons commence but wrestling was put on hold and, ultimately, cancelled.
However, other sports, that seemed just or as equally risky – even basketball for instance – got the green light to commence.
Were the COVID metrics between sports such as basketball and wrestling truly all that different in the end?
“There’s a way to do it,” said Lishness of wrestling. “It’s just so strange to me. They’re saying basketball is safer than wrestling. I just don’t see it. I don’t. One kid, going one-on-one, okay, you’re close to each other like that. But you know in a really good basketball game, one kid can possibly be face-to-face with 14 other kids on average. I mean, you can’t even contact trace that. That’s impossible to contract trace.”
And here’s some news for you, CIAC.
Do you know some wrestlers around Connecticut never stopped practicing and competing?
They kept in shape, grappled where they could, and stayed ready and poised – hoping that all the powers that be in Connecticut would make the call to get those athletes back to work.
By the way, and that group of wrestlers who never stopped training, were competing, and dominating all over the place – picking up victories outside of CT.
Bristol wrestling was looking to compete but the state of Connecticut, through various entities, did not give our athletes the ability to do so.
In the end, what did the CIAC expect those wrestlers to do?
Give up? Submit?
If you’ve ever gone to a wrestling meet in the city of Bristol, those aren’t terms our athletes use on the mats.
With basketball and lacrosse allowed to compete, what was the major difference between those sports and wrestling and football?
“The CIAC was trying to say that lacrosse is more dangerous than basketball? Lacrosse is played outside,” said Lishness. “I know there’s physical contact but it’s the same as ten bodies inside the paint [in basketball], boxing out and on top of each other. It doesn’t make sense.”
Speak up!
I tried to explain, in the pages of TBE just days before football and wrestling were officially called off, that there weren’t enough voices speaking up for the voiceless – meaning our student athletes.
Former football coaches mentioned similar thoughts to me, and one retired wrestling coach said he saw what was going to happen this year from a mile away.
And look at what came to pass in the end.
“I felt [the CIAC] zeroed in on a couple of the sports that didn’t have the same advocates as everyone else. It really hurt these kids,” said Lishness. “It did them a disservice.”
What does it mean for the sport of wrestling next winter?
How are things going to change?
Are things going to change at all?
Lishness wants to see wrestling go off without a hitch in the state of Connecticut come December of 2021 and, perhaps, even sooner during the summer months via tournaments and wrestling club challenges.
“I’m hopeful it will be business as usual,” said Lishness. “It looks like everything is moving in [the right] direction now. There’s a lot of momentum. [Wrestling] clubs have started to open back up in Connecticut and they’re doing contact and they are wrestling. I think you’re going to see some outdoor events in the summer for kids for wrestling.”
“It will start again.”
With vaccines currently being administered and herd immunity on the horizon, each successive scholastic season should be basking in a safer light.
However, a little caution never hurt anyone.
“I think it will be done in a different way,” said Lishness of wrestling. “They’ll be flights like the lightweights will be going at this time. Then the gym will be shut down for an hour. Everything is going to be cleaned. They’re going to limit the parents and stuff like that.”
“I don’t know if it’s going to be business as usual, but I think there’s finally some momentum going in that direction.”
Bristol’s senior class
Lishness is truly upset at what the seniors at both Bristol Eastern and Bristol Central have endured during the pandemic with a few students-athletes losing multiple scholastic seasons.
As I’ve stated before, several players lost both the chance to compete in 11v11 football and wrestling.
“I think about Logan Meyer and Trey Daniel” at Eastern said Lishness. “I mean both of them, those were their sports.”
Both Central and Eastern were going to have tremendous seasons on the mats and the decision makers wiped out scholastic wrestling for some truly talented individuals.
“Jake Salinas, Jake Aldi and these other seniors up at Bristol Central and all my seniors” deserve some recognition said Lishness.
Lishness has known some of the senior grapplers from Central, and Eastern for that matter, since they were six or seven years old through the in-house wrestling program at the Boys & Girls Club.
Grapplers such as Jake Aldi, Jake Salinas, Will Hamilton, Mason Lishness, Nichols, Alexander Marshall, Cameron Cruz, Logan Morelli, Logan Meyer – all those kids had Lishness as their first wrestling coach and introduced those athletes to the sport.
That’s a major reason why he’s so passionate about the CIAC not allowing wrestling to commence this year.
And Lishness feels awful that he can’t see that outstanding group of wrestlers finish out their scholastic careers.
Class L champs?
Lishness, at Eastern, thought he had a program that was primed for another Class L championship run.
He even believes more than a couple of his athletes would have placed in the New Englands.
That’s the possibility that the CIAC, The Department of Public Health and Governor Lamont’s office – and three entities need to be equally highlighted – helped to take away from the athletes while other states, some in worse shape than Connecticut, continued or modified its seasons for scholastic wrestling.
“I just feel bad for these kids,” said Lishness. “And it’s like the sport never even existed.”
Every scholastic program in the state needs coaches that go to bat for their kids and Lishness is one of those mentors.
And who didn’t want to witness what the clash between Central and Eastern was going to look like in 2021?
It would have been an amazing event that would have been contested between two top-10 or top-15 programs in Connecticut.
That’s what Lishness and Central head coach Matt Boissonneault, another excellent coach, were building for in 2021.
“You had phenomenal kids up at Central,” said Lishness. “Jake Salinas, Jake Aldi – they’re going to be threatening to do big things. And then [for Eastern], Aaron Morocho, Mason Lishness and Tommy Nichols, in this city, we probably had nine seniors who, maybe, should have placed in the Class L championships and the Open. And out of those nine, probably five, maybe six could have placed in the Open and gone on to the New Englands. There was a lot of great, great wrestlers in this [senior] class.”
“And it’s like they don’t even exist. I feel so terrible for these kids. It’s terrible.”
If scholastic wrestling wasn’t going to be safe this year, you darn know well that our local coaches wouldn’t have let their kids even go near the mats.
Was it going to be safe enough to compete?
Lishness understood the CIAC was airing on the side of caution but he felt if the experts followed the science, with Connecticut’s COVID numbers in control and lower in numbers than other states, that the season should have commenced.
The numbers did swell around the holidays, when people started getting together, but things calmed down again rather quickly.
Don’t forget, there were thousands of scholastic football games that took place around the United States and several athletes left Connecticut to play in those states.
Even some independent leagues popped up in Connecticut.
Was there a significant spike in COVID numbers in our state? The answer is no.
And when there was a chance for the CIAC to put together an alternative season, for sports such as wrestling, it went by the wayside too.
Instead of just expanding the spring season two-to-three weeks and shorten the winter by a week – or however you’d slice it – the CIAC was not going to budge and bring wrestling, football, and everything else that was halted.
Don’t forget, some of those football-to-basketball athletes miss the start of hoops every year because of the playoffs on the gridiron which continue into December.
What exactly was the difference this time around?
“There was an opportunity of the CIAC to do something in the spring and they said no because they didn’t want to interfere with spring sports, so it got cancelled,” said Lishness.
In the end, the CIAC did the best it could under the circumstances.
That much is understood.
But our Bristol seniors who couldn’t get their day in the sun, it’s heartbreaking, it’s disappointing and our student-athletes deserved a whole lot better in the end.
When the going gets tough, you don’t submit.
In this case, the CIAC did exactly that for some of our student-athletes.
And that is truly terrible.
The questions…
Now, we don’t hand out homework at TBE but after reading this story, ask yourself a few questions about scholastic wrestling during the pandemic:
*When it came to the pandemic, who was speaking on behalf of our student-athletes when football and wrestling were postponed? Why wasn’t some sort of larger committee brought together for this purpose?
*Several states, like New Hampshire, successfully held wrestling this past winter, in a state very much like our own. What was the difference between New Hampshire and Connecticut in terms of scholastic wrestling?
*Was wrestling outside, later in the year, an option? Besides the cold weather, what else would have hampered wrestling in the fresh air?
*Emma Nichols, a junior at Bristol Eastern, has been wrestling all over the place, competing in several states. How does she stay safe?
Just some things to think about…
