High School Football is America’s gold; but is it worth this?
High school football is an American tradition that none of us could stand to lose in 2020. However, the governing bodies, athletic directors, and head coaches that are in charge of protecting people’s children need to consider the consequences of actually going forward with the proposed 2020 season.
For one, it is almost guaranteed that athletes will be catching the virus if they play this violent contact sport during the fall. Along with the fact that these student-athletes will be clashing with each other with their sweat, blood, tears, saliva, etc., there is no way to ensure that locker rooms, drinking bottles, and school buses will be fully sanitized before, during, and after games. For those who played for high schools that were public, underfunded, and largely disregarded by their local and county governments, the fear of athletes dressing and congregating in boys locker rooms during a pandemic should be completely understood.
Unfortunately, many of the individuals that had a chance to compete for public, private, and charter schools that were located in the nice and clean parts of town will never understand what their inner city counterparts went through. This lack of open minded thinking is the exact reason why the United States as a whole has gotten itself in this situation. Now, instead of us adults putting out money where our mouth is, we are expecting high school football players with their entire lives ahead of them to carry our rural economies and hopes for live weekend entertainment in the fall. It’s disgusting, because many of us are hiding behind the lies of wanting to make sure our seniors can get recruited or, in many cases, have at least one more chance to put the pads on before their lives as amateur football players come to an end.
Some states’ high school athletic associations have made the right call and pushed back their football seasons until the spring. In the end, this is the right decision, as athletes that are being scouted just need a chance to suit up and play in a live setting. For schools like IMG Academy (FL), Long Beach Poly (CA), Bishop Gorman (NV), and De La Salle (CA), an intra-squad spring game may be the best competition that highly touted recruits on the roster will see all year. For others, seeing how a 4- to 5-star prospect handles a very adverse situation may be the difference. After all, Penn State and Southern California needed a few (more like a lot of) good men to help their programs transition through eras filled with lost scholarships and post season bans.
As time progresses, more states will draw their line in the sand. This is one of largest countries in the world, so that is to be expected. However, when these adults make their decisions, we hope that they realize the risks they are putting their children under in the name of entertainment and socialization on a Friday night.
