How local athletic directors, businesses, community members and the Fair made high school basketball during COVID-19 a reality in Pierce County

Even the best-laid plans sometimes go awry. That’s exactly what happened for high school basketball in Pierce County in the battle against COVID-19 this spring.

“We moved basketball back to the third season because it’s such a high-risk sport,” Sumner-Bonney Lake School District athletic director Tim Thomsen said. “So these kids have had the longest wait. We thought it would get better, but we actually went backwards a little.”

At the beginning of April, Pierce County moved into Phase 3 of the state’s reopening plan, along with the rest of the state. By mid-April, Pierce had been relegated back to Phase 2 as cases soared.

That meant no basketball, no wrestling and no water polo inside gyms and aquatics centers. By the time April 28 rolled around, exactly two weeks ago, there was a solution for wrestling — compete outside on the turf of the football stadiums.

Athletic directors still are working on a solution for water polo in a county that doesn’t have nearly enough outdoor pools to allow competition to move forward.

Then there is basketball, which was the topic of conversation at the Class 4A South Puget Sound League coaches meeting happening on that Wednesday, April 28.

“First, you have to have a vision,” Thomsen said. “So we put it out there. ‘What ideas do you guys have?’ ”

As it happened, athletic directors had been invited to this coaches meeting. Rogers girls coach Amy Looker and Curtis athletic director Suzanne Vick were texting with each other.

“Really, the bottom line of the text message she sent me was, no can’t be the answer,” Vick said of the exchange with Looker.

Thomsen then put the question out to the meeting, and Looker spoke up. Exactly two weeks later, high school basketball will begin on three courts installed in the agricultural pavilion on the Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup.

All but two 4A SPSL schools — Olympia and South Kitsap are located in counties in Phase 3 and can host at their home gyms — and all seven 3A Pierce County League schools, will use the facility that will host at least 12 games per day (four on each court) for some four weeks. The leagues will be able to play more than that on Saturdays.

Varsity, junior varsity and ‘C’ teams all will use the floors.

“The Fair, they are just being so gracious, so generous,” Vick said. “They are making the space available for kids.”

This effort has been about exactly that, giving kids the chance to participate. Local entities like the Fair, Looker Asphault, Bartleson Trucking and others have donated time, materials and effort. Even not-so-local companies have gotten involved.

The nearly 18,700 square feet of sport flooring that went down on Tuesday came up from a Portland-based organization, the Columbia Empire Volleyball Association, who Vick said rented the schools the flooring for next to nothing.

“Kids have got to play,” said CEVBA Director of Operations Matt Fischer, who was on site Tuesday helping with the install. “I know what it’s like. I have a basketball background myself.”

“This whole year, this just feels like putting the icing on the cake,” Peninsula athletic director Ross Filkins said. “But we knew this season would be the most challenging to get in.”

The athletic directors simply weren’t going stop until they found an answer, however.

“Just because you have a few hurdles that you’ve never faced before, that doesn’t take away from your duty to the kids,” Thomsen said. “We were motivated because they deserve it. And there are a lot of people to thank.”

A group of nearly 20, including athletic directors, representatives from the companies involved, and even parents showed up to aid the effort on Tuesday.

“If they don’t have their sport, they don’t have the stuff around their sport,” said Heather Ancheta, whose daughter Jenai plays at Rogers. “Even last night, after the girls went to Enumclaw to play a game and got home fairly late, they went out for pizza after. This just brings them joy. They’ve missed the community. They’ve missed the association.”

One alternative was to bus Pierce County teams into counties that remain in Phase 3. But that felt untenable, though it already happened for an early-season, nonleague contest between two 4A SPSL teams.

“Emerald Ridge and Rogers traveled to Chehalis on buses to play each other last Saturday,” Puyallup School District athletic director Jim Meyerhoff said. “That didn’t seem right. But teams want to get games in and there’s only four weeks to do it.”

With the Fairgrounds ready, teams now have a covered, open-air facility that conforms to state regulations for Phase 2.

“I’m excited to be here tomorrow night,” Meyerhoff said. “To see how it goes. People also have got to realize it’s not going to be the same as playing in a gym. We all know there will be some kinks to work out.”

Bottom line, though, is that teams are playing.

“Some of these kids identify themselves as basketball players,” Vick said. “When you talk about identity, they’ve had everything taken away from them that they value as important. So, you keep working until it’s a ‘Yes.’ It has to be a yes.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How local athletic directors, businesses, community members and the Fair made high school basketball during COVID-19 a reality in Pierce County."