Brent Deckert’s players headed straight to a Brandon park to play 5-on-5 basketball after their coach called a Friday afternoon team meeting to deliver the news their season, and hopes of back-to-back state championships, might be over.
Meanwhile, Deckert — who has been Brandon Valley’s head coach for over 20 years — accepted the invitation to join KWSN’s airwaves to express his frustration, sadness, and disagreement over the indefinite postponement of the South Dakota high school state tournaments due to coronavirus concerns, which included the closing of all public schools in the state, including his, for a week.
The decision sparked an array of emotions and perspective from several other area coaches and players, who, like Deckert’s Lynx, were to start competing at the Class AA boys and girls event on Thursday in Sioux Falls.
On Friday’s “Sports Talk with Craig & John” on KWSN, Deckert said he disagrees “1000 percent” with the South Dakota High School Activities Association’s decision to follow suit of Minnesota and several other states to cancel or postpone state hoops. Most of those decisions were made after the NBA postponed its season once a Utah Jazz player had tested positive for cornoavirus, and the NCAA and NAIA canceled all of their postseason winter sports championships, including “March Madness.”
At one point in his interview, Deckert said he didn’t think the SDHSAA, at the request of Gov. Kristi Noem was doing what is best for the athletes. However, Deckert repeatedly deferred to state leadership as the right people to make the decisions.
“There are a people out here that are a lot smarter than us making decisions that they think are best for everybody,” said Deckert, who has been a member of SDHSAA coaches committees which help make major decisions regarding state athletics legislation.
“Do I have to agree with it? Again, one thousand percent ‘no.”
Deckert said the knowledge of two known NBA players contracting coronavirus, nor the image of Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg visibly ill and having to leave a Big 10 tournament game early — followed by the entire Husker team being quarantined after the game — did not convince him basketball games should not go on in South Dakota.
Here is a transcript of portions of the interview, which you can hear in full form by clicking here.
Q: What is your reaction to the potential that your season is over and you won’t know how far you were going to go?
A: Obviously we’re holding out a little bit because it has just been postponed. But, it’s one of those deals where, I think that anybody that’s ever been involved of the working of a team, you know, all the time and effort, and all the things you go thru throughout the year — and all the ups and downs — and basically be told you don’t have an opportunity to finish this thing out, it’s kind of a difficult pill to swallow.
But, I’m just the head coach at Brandon Valley. I don’t get to make those decisions. I know it isn’t something I should be worried about because it is something I am not in control over, but on a lot of levels it is really disheartening.
Q: What words did you have for (your players), and what was the reaction from them?
A: I just told them the same thing everybody knows. It’s kind of our of our hands, but at this point, the nice thing is that it’s just postponed right now. So, maybe if things level off, maybe the state will come in, maybe the governor will come in, and make a decision that we could actually go forth with this in some different scenarios. I don’t know. I’m only guessing, there, but again, it may be a glimmer of hope, and we’re certainly going to hang on to that until we get to it, otherwise.
Those are the things we talked about at first, and then the last thing we talked about is, they looked at me and they looked at each other and they said, ‘Well, what park are we going to go to?’ They know they can’t play at school anymore, so literally, our team is at a park right now playing 5-on-5 basketball, so I think you know where their mind is right now: They want to keep playing.
Q: Why do you a hundred thousand percent disagree with these decisions?
A: Again, I’m only giving you selfish reasons for this. I am only, my thought process is not on me having any information about why we shouldn’t be having this. I’m only going on basically heartfelt emotion of a group that I’ve been working with all season long. And I don’t want to see it end like this for a school like (No. 1 seed) Yankton, at a school like Huron, or anybody else in the state tournament. I don’t want it to end like this. That is certainly not, it’s not why we do this, but again, if these decisions need to be made, what’s best for, uh, but again, I just…
I’m having a hard time seeing the big picture. Obviously, I don’t think this is best for kids. But again, this is another reason why I’m not in this decision making process. Like I said earlier, all I am is the head that boys basketball coach at Brandon, and the only thing I can do is make decisions based on that. I don’t get to make the big decisions that have to be made by somebody else.
Q: As a basketball coach, I’m wondering, when you heard the news that, In the sport of basketball at its highest level in the NBA, A player from the Utah jazz a couple of nights ago tested positive for the coronavirus, and then the next morning we learned one of his teammates tested positive for coronavirus compounded with, I’m sure you saw it at some point, the head coach of Nebraska, Fred Hoiberg, at one of the last (college) tournaments which was played, and it was played in front of a few thousand spectators in Indianapolis at the Big 10, was sick (during the game). It turned out it was flu, but he was visibly sick and his team was quarantined (for over an hour) after the game. With that knowledge and those images as a basketball coach, how much of you was thinking maybe we shouldn’t have basketball?
A: Not at all. Again, I mean, I’ll just get back to the same thing. If I’m a $1 billion owner who owns million dollar players, we’re going to shut it down because those guys are making the money. But this is, you can’t compare high school to the NBA. It’s, it’s not even in the same realm. I mean, in one fashion, it’s entertainment or the other or the other situation it is, you know, I don’t, you talked to NBA coaches and they’ll give you reasons why they coach. And one of the number one reasons why they coaches for money. Um, you know, that’s not why we do this. That’s not why Derek (Robey) is coaching that at O’Gorman…
Q: But it is sweat, Brent, and it’s a possible transmission of a deadly virus.
A: And again, I completely understand that they’re, they’re dealing with between 18 to 20,000 people a night and some of those stadiums, but it’s a whole different deal for us. Again, I think you got to lean back on what, what professionals are constantly telling us. And if they need to shut this down, then that, I guess we’ve got to shut it down. It doesn’t mean that I have to agree with it or not. But it just, it is what it is.
