Brian Glesing grabbed a pair of shoes, put them on and leaned back into the black chair inside the football coaching office Friday afternoon. The frustration of dealing with COVID-19 was evident as he prepared for a three-day weekend rather than a Saturday afternoon conference football game at New Castle.

“It’s very frustrating. We are meeting with the administration every day,” said Glesing, who had Shelbyville off to a 1-1 start but has seen week three’s home game against Delta and week four’s road game at New Castle cancelled because of a lack of available players for each game. “We are just following the rules. That is all we can do.”

Shelbyville’s program had players out due to COVID-19 and contact tracing in the first two weeks of the season but the numbers game finally caught up with a team that does not have a deep roster.

Glesing was still in full preparation mode through Thursday of week three of the regular season but he knew the COVID-19 numbers were not trending in the right direction as his team prepared for Delta.

“We had some injuries and we had some COVID-19 (cases) but we were still OK,” he said. “Then Thursday night at about 9 p.m., some players started texting the coaching staff and myself that they had received the letter, the dreaded contact tracing letter. At that point, we were already barely surviving with the COVID (protocols) and they added about five or six more (players). That devastated us.”

Shelbyville was to travel to New Castle today for a 1 p.m. Hoosier Heritage Conference game but that was canceled earlier in the week. A week five trip to Greenfield-Central is very much in doubt because of the lack of players practicing.

Glesing estimated he had 14 players, sophomores through seniors, at practice Thursday with about six more freshmen. Once the players are cleared to return from quarantine, there is still the IHSAA-mandated rule that a player must have a minimum number of practices before competing again.

“You get a couple kids back and a couple more get added (to the quarantine list),” said Glesing, in his first season as Shelbyville’s head coach. “We get a couple kids back and three more get added. We get a couple kids back and then they get sent back home for more contact tracing. It’s like plugging a dam … plug one hole here and three more spots open.”

Glesing is not questioning the process of dealing with a pandemic. Shelbyville’s program is not the only one experiencing difficulties.

“I understand everybody’s position,” said Glesing. “We want the kids safe. Everyone is following the rules and the guidelines. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just going to continue, and for us, it’s not even our players – yes we have some that are positive but more often than not it’s been from kids in school and being contact traced.

“It’s not just the football team. It’s kids getting contact traced from sitting in lunch together, or sitting in class together, or on the bus. It’s not just the football team, it’s the whole school.”

Shelbyville Central Schools system sent out a message Friday updating the COVID-19 cases in the district. Since Monday, there were 45 cases of COVID-19 reported and confirmed; 20 at Shelbyville High School, 11 at Shelbyville Middle School, four each at Coulston and Hendricks elementary schools and six at Loper Elementary.

As Glesing prepared Friday to leave the football facility, he received another text message from a player that received the contact tracing letter.

“It’s nobody’s fault. It just is what it is,” said Glesing. “Everyone has their political opinions on vaccination or no vaccination, we’re just following the rules.

“Now we do have some kids that are vaccinated and they don’t have to follow the (quarantine) protocol. It’s their choice and their family’s choice and we have not ever said that they have (to get vaccinated). It’s their right and their choice. You cannot fault that.”

Coming off the program’s first win in three seasons on Aug. 27 against Richmond, Glesing saw his newly-enthused squad have a great week of practice.

“This week, we have kind of treated it like spring practice,” he said. “We don’t have very many out there so a lot of the young kids have gotten good reps.”

The program opted not to practice Friday or today and will assess the situation again on Monday.

“I think Monday we will have a pretty good idea (if we play),” said Glesing.