Lakota Tech, the new high school on the Pine Ridge Reservation, was among fifteen tribal schools that canceled their fall sports and moved their classes online to protect their communities from coronavirus. The Oglala Lakota County School District board voted 3–2 to offer winter sports, but only with some serious anti-pandemic precautions in place:
Following safety protocols, the teams are broken down into pods of no more than 10 players, the girls are practicing at Wolf Creek with the first pod starting at 3:00 p.m., the second pod at 4:30 p.m. and the final pod at 6:00 p.m.. The head coach for the girl’s team is Laura Big Crow. The school is advertising for one assistant coach, where the current plan is to have a varsity and a junior-varsity team. The boys are practicing at Rockyford with Lyle LeBeau as the head coach. Their practices are scheduled for 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
The athletic director, [James] Knutson, said, “Safety is our priority, when possible, parents will drive the players to games, we’ll check temperatures, everyone will be expected to wear masks and social distancing will be a must.” He added, “The girl’s first game is set for Tuesday, Dec. 8 at Kimball/ White Lake, both girls and boys will play at Hay Springs on Friday, Dec. 11 and both teams will travel to Custer on Friday, December 18” [Tom Crash, “Lakota Tech: Proactive During the Pandemic,” Lakota Times, 2020.12.03]
The Lakota Tech girls played their first game as the Tatanka last Tuesday in Kimball. The junior varsity Tatanka lost to the Wildcats 38–15, but the Lakota Tech varsity girls, with no seniors, prevailed over Kimball/White Lake 48–40.
The Tatanka girls wore masks throughout their games. The Wildcats went maskless:
The Lakota Tech girls apparently had no trouble breathing or keeping their hands on the ball.
Lakota Tech’s game with Hay Springs has been postponed to January 26.
What up cruds, late for the klan meeting?
You go girls Lakota Spirit is alive and well!
SDSU WBB played Creighton a few weeks ago… I was told majority of Creighton players wore masks while playing.. And of course on the bench!
I was impressed!
It can be done–you just need to get used to it. Springtime in a nursery is barely controlled chaos. You basically power walk 7-8 miles a day, loading, unloading flats, pushing heavy carts, unloading trucks, lots of heavy lifting, lots of totin’. All done wearing a mask. It’s good cardio.