As of yesterday, I have been back at work for a month. And things are slowly getting back to normal, or at least as normal as they are going to be for a little while.
It started slowly, but it has steadily picked up over the last week and next week promises to be a full-on onslaught of games and contests. The first week back I started making contact with athletic directors around the region, hoping to get their take on how things were shaping up for the fall season. I also wanted to reach out to some of the new athletic directors that I am dealing with this year.
For most of my time on the job, I've been covering five schools, Kennett, Kingswood, Prospect Mountain, Newfound and Plymouth. I've had two people working for me who also cover five schools apiece and I would edit their content and get it set for the papers each week. While we were all laid off back in April, at this point, I am the only one who has been brought back, which means that in addition to the five schools I've covered for a few years, I am adding Moultonborough, Inter-Lakes, Gilford, Winnisquam, Belmont, Littleton, Lisbon, Profile, Lin-Wood and Woodsville.
Needless to say, this is going to be a dauntless challenge that is going to require a lot of cooperation from coaches to help cover the many, many athletes on these teams. There's no question that this is going to be a season like no other, in more ways than one.
Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has also changed the way the sports season started. The start of practices was delayed and teams were separated into different categories to determine when they could play their first games. This left me with only golf competing for the first week and a half. So, over the course of eight days, I covered six golf matches at six different courses and saw nine different teams. I started with Prospect Mountain, Plymouth, Gilford and Belmont at Farmington Country Club last Thursday and then went to Blackmount Country Club on Friday for Littleton and Woodsville. On Monday it was up to Owl's Nest Resort for Plymouth and Tuesday was a trip to Cochecho Country Club to see the Kennett team open up its season. Moultonborough and Kingswood teed off at Ridgewood Country Club to start their seasons on Wednesday and on Thursday it was a trip to Maplewood in Bethlehem to see Littleton, Woodsville and White Mountains.
This new situation has also brought about regional schedules, which is something I will not complain about at all. Seemingly every game on the schedule is between two teams in our coverage area, which is nice. Plymouth and Newfound are facing off in a couple of sports, the aforementioned Moultonborough and Kingswood golf match featured teams that usually don't play each other and there's many more matchups that haven't taken place before.
The real work starts today, as soccer, field hockey, cross country and volleyball get the official nod to start with contests and it's full-on from here on out.
I am happy to be back at work. Even if it's going to be a bit busy.
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