Mark Fischenich: Ask Us: One last (hopefully) mask question

Mark Fischenich, The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
·4 min read

May 16—Q: For the past year, it seems like every sports photo in the paper shows boys basketball players with the mask below their nose, on their chin or completely off. Hearing how high school sporting events are causing an increase in COVID numbers, I'm just wondering if the coaches take mask-wearing seriously. And if the officials ever — EVER — stop play to tell the players they need to wear their mask OVER their nose.

Is it just me or do others think that high school officials and coaches simply ignore wearing masks properly? Does the High School League have any training videos for high school athletes on how to wear a mask properly? What is their advice for officials when someone is wearing their mask on their chin? And if they keep falling off, does the school provide better masks that can actually stay on and cover players' noses? I did notice that twice in the paper when there was a photo of girls basketball players, most of them DID have their masks above their chin and over their nose. Just curious if players, coaches and officials care about the virus spread anymore.

A: Ask Us Guy is suffering from pandemic question fatigue.

It's been 14 months since the first COVID questions arrived, and they haven't slowed down. One of the first came from a reader wondering why The Free Press published a projection that the pandemic would kill 60,000 people nationwide in one article while also printing another projection in an adjacent story that the coronavirus might kill 22,000 people in Minnesota alone. (Ask Us Guy pointed out that the projections came from two universities with two different sets of epidemiologists. The first was a prediction of deaths across the U.S. from the University of Washington, which turned out to be overly optimistic by a factor of 10. The second came from the University of Minnesota and was overly pessimistic by nearly a factor of three.)

Other questions followed throughout 2020, including one wondering if all deaths in Minnesota were being counted as COVID deaths. (Nope). Another questioned why The Free Press only reported county-level COVID infections rather than giving city-by-city figures. (The Minnesota Department of Health doesn't break down the stats by city, just by county.) Somebody wondered if overall death statistics were higher than a typical year. (Yeah, way higher.) And a resident wanted to know why municipal swimming pools needed to be closed since the chlorine would kill the coronavirus. (The concern by health officials was possible infections when people inhaled and exhaled, which is something best done by swimmers while their heads are out of the water.)

When a bunch of questions arrived wondering why some stores weren't enforcing mask mandates, Ask Us Guy took a week of vacation and let Stand-In Ask Us Guy deal with them.

So, anyway, with the pandemic as politicized as ever, Ask Us Guy concedes he didn't put as much effort into answering this latest long list of questions.

Rather than call area athletics directors, coaches and players, Ask Us Guy just contacted the Minnesota State High School League. The MSHSL official suggested, rather than doing an interview, that Ask Us Guy email the list of questions so the league could draft more thoughtful answers.

After waiting a week, Ask Us Guy inquired again and got this response: "The Minnesota State High School League's priority is the health and safety of all involved. Masking and basketball guidance was provided and reinforced with 500-plus member schools on a daily basis while offering opportunities for competition in accordance with Minnesota Department of Health guidelines."

Ask Us Guy emailed back a request for actual answers: "Specifically, the reader wants to know if any training videos or guidance was provided to coaches and players about proper mask-wearing? Were referees given any instructions or advice on how to respond to players who weren't, for instance, keeping their nose covered? Do you know if play was ever stopped to address a player's failure to follow the mask guidelines? The statement provided doesn't really address those questions."

As for whether boys or girls basketball players were better mask wearers, Ask Us Guy watched quite a bit of both the state tournaments. While he didn't keep a scorebook of how each gender did on mask adherence, he saw players in both tournaments who had incredible all-around skills — high shooting percentages, great passing, relentless defense, and consistent nose-and-mouth mask coverage.

He saw plenty of players with weak spots in their games. One girl in the Class A championship game was an absolutely terrific basketball player, but her nose-coverage percentage was about equal to Shaquille O'Neal's success at the free-throw line.

But even Shaq's free throw percentage exceeded the State High School League's question-answering rate. After another week, there's been no response beyond the original generic statement.

Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, 418 S. Second St., Mankato, MN 56001. Call Mark Fischenich at 344-6321 or email your question to mfischenich@mankatofreepress.com; put Ask Us in the subject line.