Lives lost, lives changed at Sectional 10: One year after COVID hit high school basketball

A year ago this weekend, Kay Johnson was seated next to her husband, Charles, just a few rows behind the Warren Central bench.

They were at Class 4A Sectional 10 at Lawrence Central,  featuring the best of Indiana high school basketball. Down-to-the-wire games, sold-out crowds, great individual performances.

“When I think back to that week,” Kay Johnson said, “I think about having a great time. Those basketball games at Sectional 10 were the best. Then, lo and behold, the Thursday after the sectional was over, we both went to the doctor and all hell broke loose. Three weeks later, my husband was gone.”

The Johnsons, longtime Warren Central supporters, would not have missed the sectional for anything. They attended three games that week. Charles, 79, died on March 27 after testing positive for COVID-19. Kay also fell ill. She was not tested, but her antibody test returned a positive result in May.

Charles Johnson was one of at least five people who attended Sectional 10 that week — all were there on Friday night (March 6) — who later died. In addition to Johnson, North Central athletic director Paul Loggan, Warren Central fan Roscoe Taylor, Lawrence North fan Larry Rush and Lawrence North volunteer Jim DeSalle, would die after testing positive for COVID-19.

Sectional 10 is underway again, this year at Tech. Kay Johnson attended a few football, girls and boys basketball games at Warren Central this season. But she could not bring herself to attend the sectional. Not yet. Not this year.

A year ago, sectional basketball in Indiana was the week everything changed. No one in the gym knew it at the time. Certainly not Charles and Kay Johnson, Warren Central super fans who had a blast cheering on their Warriors.

“This is a great week, no doubt,” Johnson said. “But I’m not going this year. It’s too hard. The staff at Warren Central has been great, allowing me to come back to some games. But it’s not the same.”

A year later, I agree with Kay Johnson.

Sectional 10 sees many cases of COVID-19

I wrote about Sectional 10 last April after many conversations in the weeks following the shutdown of the IHSAA tournament and connecting the dots after writing individu al stories about Johnson, Loggan, Taylor, Rush and DeSalle. There were roughly 15-20 others who reached out who attended the sectional who said they either tested positive, knew someone who did or exhibited symptoms consistent with COVID-19.

As I wrote at the time, we did not know then or now whether those five individuals contracted the virus in the gym on any of those nights. It did become clear in the ensuing weeks the virus was spreading during sectional week — unbeknownst to us in the gym.

A year ago:It was the hottest basketball sectional. Then attendees started dying of coronavirus.

More:Remembering those who died after attending Sectional 10

“I don’t think we could have done anything different,” Kay Johnson said. “We didn’t know it was prevalent at the time. I don’t put any blame anywhere. My husband was not healthy. He had heart and lung issues. My doctor told me even with better medicine and knowledge, he probably would not have made it. He was in failing health. It doesn’t make it any better, or easier. For months, I couldn’t watch TV and see people who were recovering and not think: ‘Why didn’t my husband recover?’”

For many, myself included, sectional week will always represent a marker of “pre” and “post.” The following Thursday, the Indiana High School Athletic Association called a news conference to announce the regional would be played on Saturday with limited fans. But things were starting to fall apart already that day. Some schools were not going to host the regional. By Friday at noon, the tournament was postponed and, later, canceled.

I was glad. I have not written about this because, well, who cares about that when people are dying and have it much worse? But I was feeling sick, too, and went to urgent care on March 17, the Tuesday after what would have been regional weekend. I had sharp pain in my left lung, headaches, a couple of nights of fevers and a loss of the sense of smell. Like a lot of others at the time, I was not tested. All of the symptoms were not really known then. But I will always remember taking a lung x-ray and the technician telling me, “Try not to touch anything when you go through the waiting room because there are a lot of people out there who think they have coronavirus.”

I was prescribed Albuterol, took it several times a day, and started to feel better. It was not until I tested positive for the antibodies in June did it confirm what, by then, I was 99% sure was the case.

I can already hear some of you now, tweeting recovery percentages. But I have talked to too many other people who felt the same way, who were in much tougher situations, than to just brush aside a virus that has killed more than 500,000 Americans.

People such as Tim Estes and Jim Stanbrough. They were both there at Sectional 10 that week. Estes, who keeps basketball statistics for Carmel, was there only on Wednesday night. Stanbrough, a Lawrence North assistant, was there all three nights the Wildcats played.

Estes, 51, sat about four rows from the top on Wednesday night for the doubleheader featuring Cathedral vs. Crispus Attucks and Lawrence North vs. Lawrence Central. In one of the crowd shots taken by IndyStar photographer Mykal McEldowney, Estes can be seen looking to the court. 

“I keep that picture on my phone,” Estes said. “It reminds me of that day.”

Estes did not even have a ticket to the session that night. He was walking away from the sold-out gym back to his car when he was approached by a friend who had an extra ticket and gave it to him. About 10 days after the game, on March 21, he woke up with a fever. The following day, he was able to take a test at Eli Lilly, where his wife works.

“I’m telling you it was the most surreal thing that’s happened in my life,” Estes said. “There wasn’t a soul downtown. We drove onto the Lilly campus, into the underground parking area. It was a like science fiction movie. They came out dressed in these hazmat suits and there’s someone there holding a flip chart walking you through the process.”

Estes’ test came back positive. He ran a fever for 13 days, quarantined downstairs in his home and hardly able to move. The left side of his body ached. He was coughing and struggled to breathe at times. He was in constant contact with his doctor, but there was little she could do for him.

“I was the first case at my doctor’s office so I was kind of the guinea pig,” he said. “She was telling me to hang in there. Finally by the end of April, I was able to walk to my mailbox and back. That was the highlight of my day.”

Estes eventually was able to stretch out to longer walks with his wife and return to work. But the health issues have continued. Estes still has fatigue issues and his senses of taste and smell have not returned. He has struggles with short-term memory. His left leg still is not working as it did before he contracted the virus.

“I’ve probably been to 20 different physicians since then,” Estes said. “About a week-and-a-half ago, I had 30 vials of blood drawn. We’re still trying to figure out why I’m having lingering effects.”

There were times, lying on that couch in pain, that Estes did not know if he was going to make it through.

“It was reality for me,” Estes said. “I was living a day at a time. I really felt like I had a 50-50 chance I was going to make it. I’m a Christian and I believe things happen for a reason. I have a great appreciation for (Carmel coach) Ryan Osborn and what he did. He had a big impact on me, communicating every day. I was getting the same speeches about mental toughness and staying positive that he gives his team. That time made me appreciate all the people who called and checked in with me. It made me think that I need to do a better job of doing the same for others. I have a responsibility to do that now.”

Stanbrough, 65, has fully recovered physically. He is part of a Lawrence North staff that was hit particularly hard by the virus. DeSalle, 70, died on April 1. Another assistant, Gerad Good, tested positive and ran a high fever for 17 days. He lost 22 pounds.

As Stanbrough recounted in the original story, he shared a table with DeSalle at Alibi’s Grill on North Shadeland Avenue on the night of Lawrence North’s sectional championship win over Warren Central. It was a regular postgame spot for the coaching staff.

“Probably not a week goes by that I don’t think about that night,” Stanbrough said. “It’s always something of a hard memory to think about. When this season started, someone mentioned going back. I felt very uneasy about that.”

Stanbrough began feeling ill the following day. He attended practice on the Thursday before the regional, but was not feeling well. He was admitted to the hospital two days later and tested positive for COVID-19 on March 23. He spent six days in the hospital, then went back on April 2 and spent six more days in the hospital, where it was discovered he had blood clots in his legs and lungs.

“As scared as I was, there was this thought that you were fighting something that is an unknown,” Stanbrough said. “‘Am I going to make it?’ I’d never been in that position before. I wasn’t even a person who got sick. When I was in the hospital, hooked up to all of these wires, there was this device, a pulse oximeter, that measures the oxygen in your blood. As long as I was laying down in bed, it would not go off. But every time I’d get up and go to the bathroom, it would get down to a certain level and go off. It would put me in a panic. Being isolated, in that situation, is something that will always stay with me.”

Halfway though the season, Stanbrough and the Lawrence North staff returned to Alibi’s Grill for the first time since that sectional championship night. His wife, Marta, went with him.

“We always used to go off to the left when we went in there,” he said. “This time, we went off to the right. It was eerie. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that hurdle of thinking about it. Sitting there with Jim that night and then wondering later, ‘Why him and not me?’”

'Coronavirus has left an indelible mark'

On Wednesday night, before both games of the Sectional 10 doubleheader at Tech — Lawrence North vs. Cathedral and Lawrence Central vs. Warren Central — public address announcer Chris Keys read a statement that started, “The novel coronavirus has left an indelible mark on Americans of all ages and all walks of life. This includes some of our very own Sectional 10 family members.”

Fans at Tech stood as Keys read the names of Loggan, Taylor, Johnson, Rush and DeSalle. “He is truly missed,” Keys said after reading a few words on each individual. Stanbrough and Good both stood on the floor in front of the Lawrence North bench.

Then the games began. And they felt somewhat normal. I talked to Lawrence North junior C.J. Gunn and Warren Central senior Malik Stanley, who both said they enjoyed having a larger crowd there than there had been during the season. It was loud at times in the Tech gym, even if it was not the sellout it would have been under the usual circumstances.

I am not sure it will ever feel exactly the same as it did before. Maybe it will, eventually. I hope so. But not this year. Not yet.

“I have two sisters who are widows,” Kay Johnson said. “They have been widows for many years. My mom was a widow for 30 years. Because of their experiences, I know the first year is the worst. The first birthday, the first Christmas. Once you get past that — even though it never goes away — you learn how to get through it. You think about the memories, the smiles.

“I think I will go back. I miss being there. But just not this year.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.