School District of Janesville opens winter sports seasons as lone competitor in Big Eight

JANESVILLE, Wis. – The School District of Janesville’s athletic programs have begun participating in winter sports, as the district made the decision to play just weeks prior.

The decision was made at an emergency school board meeting in November, following local health officials decision to move Rock County back into phase one of COVID-19 reopening. While this prompted SDJ to pivot learning at the middle and high school levels entirely virtual, athletics were given the green light to move forward as scheduled.

On Friday, the Craig girl’s basketball team hosted Edgewood, a school unable to play home games due to local health guidelines in Dane County.

“We’ve had to build our own schedule. We have no conference,” said coach Kerry Storbakken.

The veteran coach says he’s thrilled his team has an opportunity to play.

“I was just hoping they’d get a chance,” he said. “It would have been devastating. I know our kids worked so hard, put a lot of hours in the offseason, they really look forward to those high school varsity years. You just see the smiles in their eyes.”

The coach says practices are different, with players only able to work in pods of four at one time, except for the last practice before a game, where they’re allowed to practice 5 on 5. In addition, he says he talks each day with his players about COVID safety.

Per WIAA guidelines, if a player on any Craig or Parker team test positive for COVID-19, the team would be shut down for two weeks, and unable to compete for three.

“It’s kind of a day to day basis where it may be that we have a game tonight, or no we don’t have a game tonight, now we have a game tomorrow,” said Athletic Director Ben McCormick. “We can never guarantee safety, I’ve said that all along. Even in a normal year, we can’t guarantee the safety of our kids. We understand it’s heightened this year with COVID.”

McCormick says that he understands the risk, while valuing the need to take proper safety precautions at games. On Friday, fans were limited to two-per-athlete, as they will be all season.

“We think it’s a positive outlet for our kids to be here, to be active in the gym,” he said. “We’re trying to do everything we can with limiting our fans and limiting practice times and things like that to do our best to keep them safe.”