Near the end of last season, the North Branford football team was practicing with just 22 players.
North Branford head coach Mark Basil said he has 39 players to start the preseason this year.
Basil said there are enough football helmets and equipment to go around. It just so happens that not all the helmets are brand new.
“We have an order of 10 new helmets we’ve been waiting for, as well as shoulder pads. We haven’t heard anything about receiving them anytime soon,” Basil said. “So we put them in different pads and different helmets until those come.”
The issue for North Branford and a number of football programs around the state are supply chain issues. Equipment is taking quite longer to arrive now than it used to in the past.
And it’s not just football.
“I think there are supply chain issues all over the place. It crosses into all sports,” said Weston athletic director Mark Berkowitz, also the co-commissioner of the SWC. “The vendors we work with have been awesome in communicating. I do believe the vendors are really doing everything they can to support us and we appreciate that. Otherwise, we would be in a worse situation than what we are in now.”
Like North Branford, Weston’s numbers for football grew from last season. So Berkowitz tried to order new helmets with Riddell, which specializes in football equipment and is used by a number of schools statewide.
“I tried to order some helmets. New helmets are not going to be found right now. Riddell worked with us and lent us some good helmets.”
Stamford High athletic director Chris Passamano sent his helmets out to Riddell to be reconditioned — a common practice done each season to make sure they can be used for the next season. Normally, a helmet’s shelf life can be anywhere from 8-10 seasons.
Passamano allows the players to purchase their own helmets, but even those need to be reconditioned. The later he got them from the athletes, the later they came back from Riddell. In fact, a few helmets arrived the day preseason practice began. Realizing this, Passamano said he has made it a point to be “a bit ahead of the curve” when it comes to placing orders.
But even with that, sometimes, you need to come up with plans B, C and D, especially with increased numbers of football players on the roster.
“The other day, our coach asked for six extra-large helmets. I called every AD I know and no one has them because we are all looking for helmets. So I put six helmets on my credit card.”
Passamano ordered the helmets from a warehouse site in Pennsylvania called Sports Unlimited.
“I called them again today (Aug. 31). I needed six more. I had never used them before. We have more kids than we have ever had, so now we need more helmets. In years past, it would not have been a difficulty,” Passamano said.
Passamano said he got the first six last week and expects to get the next six by Sept. 5 the latest.
“I spent a lot of money on my (personal) credit card to make sure I got the helmets right away,” Passamano said. “You call Schutt (Sports, another equipment company that sells helmets) or Riddell right now, they are not taking orders.”
Killingly, the reigning Class M state champions, had a shortage of helmets also thanks to an increased roster size and put out a request for more on its team Twitter account. E.O. Smith answered and supplied Killingly with what it needed to start the season.
The supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have seemingly been an issue for a few years now.
Riddell acknowledges the issues and “has been consistent and transparent in our message that the ongoing supply chain transportation, and labor challenges would remain a factor for football equipment” for this season and that message had been relayed through the vendors to the clients, said Erin Griffin, the vice president of marketing and communications.
“Even with new capabilities that inform our projections and production flow, and significant early reconditioning pick-ups and orders, we cannot fully meet the increased demand,” Griffin said.
When this became an issue on the athletics side, athletic directors reached out to vendors to place orders earlier than usual to try and ensure they arrived on time for the season.
“What I’ve done the last two years is identify all of our needs in early summer and place all orders at the same time, all our equipment, all our uniforms, the entire gamut of everything we need,” New Haven citywide athletic director Erik Patchkofsky said. “I try to reach out to our coaches to get an idea of all their needs, budgeting it all at once.”
Said Law athletic director V.J. Sarullo: “We can’t issue purchase orders until our new fiscal year starts (July 1), but you can give your vendors a heads-up. We try to get a couple of different prices. You are able to do that before July 1. We might need a certain amount of helmets or knee pads and our vendors were able to plan for it. … But with COVID and supply chain issues, you can be the best planner in the world and still have some issues with things not coming in.”
Griffin said Riddell has made it a point to its clients in the past to not place a lot of orders during the months leading up to the football season. In a post-COVID world, that has changed a little.
“With the increased demand, limitations of the other equipment manufacturers, and lingering issues from the pandemic, we have communicated extended lead times as a result,” Griffin said.
Teams do send out its football equipment to be reconditioned: in other words, it all gets tested to make sure it is safe to use again. So teams can have enough helmets and other equipment, just not necessarily new gear.
And sometimes, like in the case of Killingly and E.O. Smith, teams are helping out one another. Basil got a couple of calls himself.
One was from North Haven’s Tony Sagnella, looking for a pair of extra-large Speed helmets that he couldn’t get from Riddell. It was an easy drop-off: Basil and Sagnella live on the same street in Northford.
“It was done within six hours. If he called me, I would try to accommodate him the way he did for me. The New Haven area coaches, we all have really good relationships when it comes to helping somebody out,” Sagnella said.
Sagnella also called East Haven coach Scott Benoit looking for helmets before connecting with Basil, who heard from Benoit looking for new knee pads. Unfortunately, Basil was unable to help Benoit.
East Haven has approximately 30 players, Benoit said, so he had enough pads from last year to get by.
“It’s been hard to get helmets and hard to get shoulder pads. This kind of stuff has been going on going back to 2020. This isn’t something new,” Benoit said. “It started with COVID and I don’t think anyone really recovered from it.”
There was another order East Haven hadn’t received in late August: the shirts for the coaching staff.
“If we don’t come up with something in 2 weeks, we will wear what we’ve been wearing since last year,” Benoit said.
For New Haven athletics, Stadium System handles the helmets while BSN Sports handles everything else, Patchkofsky said. The only thing that never did show up were the boys soccer uniforms for Wilbur Cross last season.
So the previous season’s uniforms were used instead.
“They were past the normal life cycle we would typically allow for them,” Patchkofsky said. “BSN has been very good during difficult times to ensure that New Haven athletes have all the supplies and equipment they need.”
Berkowitz said an order he placed in May for Weston arrived on Aug. 25. A separate order for new volleyballs placed last November arrived the week before that.
“I always tried to do my orders when the season ends for the following year. Now, it’s not even an option not to (do that),” Berkowitz said.
Last fall, a proposal to bring a 35-second shot clock to the CIAC to start in the 2022-23 season was altered to push back to 2023-24 due in part to schools having potential supply chain issues getting shot clocks in enough time to be able to install.
So it’s do your best to plan ahead orders and hope for the best. Maybe plan way ahead.
“Lacrosse shoulder pads, I ordered them in April of 2021. I got them this past February. It’s crazy,” Passamano said.
[email protected]; @nhrJoeMorelli
