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Scottie Richardson, men’s varsity basketball coach for the Crossroad Christian School Colts, and Jeff Daniels, assistant coach for the Carolina Hurricanes, appeared on the WIZS Coach’s Corner Friday.
Richardson discussed the Colt’s return to the gym this week for the first practice since the COVID-19 quarantine.
“I told my guys with a tear in my eye how exciting it was to be back in the gym,” said Richardson. “It’s a little different scenario and guidelines that we now have to abide by, but I’m just so glad to be back and smelling the hardwood.”
Richardson’s young team consists of four freshmen and two sophomores who are still learning the Colt’s program, making restrictions even more of a challenge in building a cohesive team.
“We tried to communicate at least weekly, if not every other day, with the team by breaking down film, talking about what’s going on in their lives and discussing how they can do better on working on their game individually,” Richardson said.
According to Richardson, while that’s been helpful, nothing beats in-person practice. To keep everyone safe, the Colts are following stage one guidelines provided by the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCISAA), which are effective for the next two weeks.
Stage one NCISAA guidelines for athletic practices include the requirement of 10 people or fewer in a gymnasium and 25 or fewer on an outdoor court. Each player’s temperature must also be checked before practice, and anyone registering a fever of 100 or higher will be dismissed from campus for 14 days.
In perhaps the most restrictive measure for basketball practice, players are not allowed to touch the same ball. “Here’s where it gets tricky,” Richardson said. “No one can touch your basketball, and anyone that does is supposed to be asked to leave. We are lucky that we have six goals in the gym, so we’ve been working on form shooting and just taking some of the rust off.”
To hear more from Richardson, and to hear from Jeff Daniels with the Carolina Hurricanes, please listen to the respective Coach’s Corner audio by clicking the play buttons above.