Will there be high school football this fall?

[CoachBuckett]

Safety is the focus in my mind. Obviously on the virus side, waiting till normal start in July is best. Is there a safety concern from the on field play side if you wait till July? What are the football risks in waiting till July?

 

VOR,

Safety is always on my mind. There are other things that go on that coaches are needed for in schools that have a high number of kids on free and reduced lunch.

 

See I need to make sure kids are being fed. I need to make sure summer school classes are being attended. I need to make sure kids are not doing drugs. I need to love on a few kids. Has nothing to do with X's and O's. Those kids also need to be a part of something. They need some structure that is provided. Some may need some walking around money.

 

Some coaches have kids that have bigger issues than Covid -19. I wished that was only thing some of the kids had to deal with in life.

 

My wife works for a school district and recently had a phone conversation with young lady who is a pretty good athlete. She was having to do some things with her body to feed herself and her siblings. I am not saying coaches can keep kids safe all the time. But the chances increase when a coach can be involved with them. These are things you can't do if you can't get them away from their environment long enough to lay your eyes on them to make sure they are ok.

 

So sure we can wait to July 1. My daughter who is an athlete will be fine. But there is a percentage of kids that have been away from their coaches so long. May be too late.

[allsport71]

VOR,

Safety is always on my mind. There are other things that go on that coaches are needed for in schools that have a high number of kids on free and reduced lunch.

 

See I need to make sure kids are being fed. I need to make sure summer school classes are being attended. I need to make sure kids are not doing drugs. I need to love on a few kids. Has nothing to do with X's and O's. Those kids also need to be a part of something. They need some structure that is provided. Some may need some walking around money.

 

Some coaches have kids that have bigger issues than Covid -19. I wished that was only thing some of the kids had to deal with in life.

 

My wife works for a school district and recently had a phone conversation with young lady who is a pretty good athlete. She was having to do some things with her body to feed herself and her siblings. I am not saying coaches can keep kids safe all the time. But the chances increase when a coach can be involved with them. These are things you can't do if you can't get them away from their environment long enough to lay your eyes on them to make sure they are ok.

 

So sure we can wait to July 1. My daughter who is an athlete will be fine. But there is a percentage of kids that have been away from their coaches so long. May be too late.

 

Awesome post Coach, I agree with your thoughts on so many levels. I coach a high school spring sport, 3 days from first pitch our season ended, I agree that coaching is so much more than the x and o and even wins and losses, every coach wants to win, but there is so much more, I missed the ball field and the travel, but most I missed the athletes and making sure they keep up with grades and life in general, as a coach you invest so much time in their lives and I missed that, I get it this spring and understand why things was canceled, but I agree it’s time to move on, let’s hope the players, coaches and everyone involved stays safe and well and have a full schedule. Thanks for your thoughts, I couldn’t agree more.

[Voice of Reason]

VOR,

Safety is always on my mind. There are other things that go on that coaches are needed for in schools that have a high number of kids on free and reduced lunch.

 

See I need to make sure kids are being fed. I need to make sure summer school classes are being attended. I need to make sure kids are not doing drugs. I need to love on a few kids. Has nothing to do with X's and O's. Those kids also need to be a part of something. They need some structure that is provided. Some may need some walking around money.

 

Some coaches have kids that have bigger issues than Covid -19. I wished that was only thing some of the kids had to deal with in life.

 

My wife works for a school district and recently had a phone conversation with young lady who is a pretty good athlete. She was having to do some things with her body to feed herself and her siblings. I am not saying coaches can keep kids safe all the time. But the chances increase when a coach can be involved with them. These are things you can't do if you can't get them away from their environment long enough to lay your eyes on them to make sure they are ok.

 

So sure we can wait to July 1. My daughter who is an athlete will be fine. But there is a percentage of kids that have been away from their coaches so long. May be too late.

 

Awesome post Coach, I agree with your thoughts on so many levels. I coach a high school spring sport, 3 days from first pitch our season ended, I agree that coaching is so much more than the x and o and even wins and losses, every coach wants to win, but there is so much more, I missed the ball field and the travel, but most I missed the athletes and making sure they keep up with grades and life in general, as a coach you invest so much time in their lives and I missed that, I get it this spring and understand why things was canceled, but I agree it’s time to move on, let’s hope the players, coaches and everyone involved stays safe and well and have a full schedule. Thanks for your thoughts, I couldn’t agree more.

 

The best and only points I have seen that give merit to opening sooner than after the usual dead period.

[Hellcats]

Coaches are getting antsy and are worried about their kids, but until we see what happens after 2-3 weeks of reopening all arguments are moot.

 

This thing has either gone dormant for the season or is a powder keg and sports are the least of our worries.

[LongTimeReader]

NFHS has posted guidelines for states to reopen high school sports.

 

NFHS releases recommendations for high school athletics and activities | Columbia Star

[barrel]

When they talk about phase 1,2,3 are those phases separate than the state’s phase 1,2,3? Meaning if the state is in phase 2 would sports start with phase 2 guidelines. That part I’m a little unclear on.

[LongTimeReader]

I’m not sure either. My guess is the school/school district would ultimately make that decision.

[wrn1979]

Coaches are getting antsy and are worried about their kids, but until we see what happens after 2-3 weeks of reopening all arguments are moot.

 

This thing has either gone dormant for the season or is a powder keg and sports are the least of our worries.

 

You leave out the 3rd option: that it was just a whole bunch of nothing. My hospital of employment led our region in preparedness and testing. I stopped following the numbers two weeks ago when it became obvious that nothing was happening:

 

3000 tests

150 positives

30 hospitalizations

5 deaths

 

I work in one emergency department in a multi-hospital system. We average 300 patients per day between our two busiest ER’s. We’ve been seeing about 120 because people are scared to leave their houses. Since the shut downs began, I’ve taken care of one patient who actually tested positive, and she had zero symptoms. She was tested for nursing home placement.

 

We have lost 40 million dollars since this started.

 

The bottom line, just as I predicted on day 1, this has been a whole bunch of nothing.

[Fake Tom Brady]

I want sports to start as bad as anybody. Not trying to be a gloom and doomer but after reading several of these posts, I would like to bring up a couple questions that I think are critical for football returning.

1. How do you have HS football without fans? You cant say its ok to risk the health

of the players, coaches, officials, & trainers if you deem it unsafe to have fans. Seems unrealistic to say we are going to allow these amateur athletes play despite the health risk being so high we cant allow their fellow students to even sit in the stands. Also, there is no way some parents will let their kid play football without being there in attendance. What if the player during an away game gets a serious injury and the parent cant be there? That sounds like a law suit if something were to go terribly wrong.

2. How do you guarantee that players are not passing the virus around the team, coaches, staff on a daily basis? It would nearly be impossible to test every HS and MS player, coach, and staff member every single day or every other day to make sure the virus isnt spreading within a team. If you test every day for football you have to assume you would have to test every other fall sport frequently as well. And then if there are even enough tests available to do that, do you honestly believe school districts will put forth the funding and man power to test all of the athletes multiple times per week? Especially the day of the game and the monday returning to practice.

I think its great to talk about starting but I have seen very little discussion about the realistic measures that are going to have to be taken on a daily basis to make this possible.

[LongTimeReader]

Starting back up with sports will all start from those that make money playing the sport. Professional athletes and organizations will dictate a lot of what happens in college, high school, and youth sports. If the people getting paid to play are willing to play then I believe it will have a trickle down effect.

 

You can't test every coach and player every day, but they will be able check their temperature like many places of business are doing with their employees. Is that perfect? No, but it is a starting point. The fan stand point is something I don't think will be as big of an issue for high school sports. There are some schools that draw large crowds every week, but for the majority of schools there is plenty of room for fans to spread out within the stadium. The concern I would have with fans are the "student sections". The answer to that is you just don't have a student section.

[Hellcats]

You leave out the 3rd option: that it was just a whole bunch of nothing. My hospital of employment led our region in preparedness and testing. I stopped following the numbers two weeks ago when it became obvious that nothing was happening:

 

3000 tests

150 positives

30 hospitalizations

5 deaths

 

I work in one emergency department in a multi-hospital system. We average 300 patients per day between our two busiest ER’s. We’ve been seeing about 120 because people are scared to leave their houses. Since the shut downs began, I’ve taken care of one patient who actually tested positive, and she had zero symptoms. She was tested for nursing home placement.

 

We have lost 40 million dollars since this started.

 

The bottom line, just as I predicted on day 1, this has been a whole bunch of nothing.

 

We live in a rural state and have been in two months of stay-at-home lowering the effects. Let's hope it stays that way, and we don't see what other places have seen.

[Banymac]

PrepSpin - The PrepSpin Podcast | KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett | Facebook

Here is a link to the Prep Spin interview with Julian Tackett. It's is about 1 1/2 hour, but Julian gives his perspective about everything from the Sweet Sixteen to fall sports.

[Voice of Reason]

You leave out the 3rd option: that it was just a whole bunch of nothing. My hospital of employment led our region in preparedness and testing. I stopped following the numbers two weeks ago when it became obvious that nothing was happening:

 

3000 tests

150 positives

30 hospitalizations

5 deaths

 

I work in one emergency department in a multi-hospital system. We average 300 patients per day between our two busiest ER’s. We’ve been seeing about 120 because people are scared to leave their houses. Since the shut downs began, I’ve taken care of one patient who actually tested positive, and she had zero symptoms. She was tested for nursing home placement.

 

We have lost 40 million dollars since this started.

 

The bottom line, just as I predicted on day 1, this has been a whole bunch of nothing.

 

About 1.5 million cases and closing in on 90,000 deaths WITH A SHUTDOWN. I repeat WITH A SHUTDOWN. Far from "nothing". Without the shutdown, those projections for 500,000+ dead likely come true.

[wrn1979]

About 1.5 million cases and closing in on 90,000 deaths WITH A SHUTDOWN. I repeat WITH A SHUTDOWN. Far from "nothing". Without the shutdown, those projections for 500,000+ dead likely come true.

 

 

Rewrite that a different way:

 

1.5 million cases, 96% of which are still alive.

 

Then add in a few more details your statement leaves out:

 

1) We now know that this virus was in this country LONG before anyone even knew it existed. One of the epidemiologists finally admitted that there is proof that it’s been here since the fall. There’s potentially another 1.5 million cases we don’t know about.

 

2) For the first month the CDC would only allow testing for those with severe symptoms or those who were at high risk because of their travel history. That leaves out a significant number of people who had mild or no symptoms and who acquired the virus locally during a time when everyone thought it came from an undercooked bat in Wuhan.

 

3) Of those “confirmed deaths” you have no idea how many are really directly related to covid19. There are multiple reports of hospitals adding on the diagnosis in unconfirmed deaths because of better reimbursement. There is also a report of hundreds of deaths From before testing being reported as Covid19 posthumously “because the clinical picture fit.”

 

Don’t believe everything you see on the nightly news.

[Voice of Reason]

Rewrite that a different way:

 

1.5 million cases, 96% of which are still alive.

 

Then add in a few more details your statement leaves out:

 

1) We now know that this virus was in this country LONG before anyone even knew it existed. One of the epidemiologists finally admitted that there is proof that it’s been here since the fall. There’s potentially another 1.5 million cases we don’t know about.

 

2) For the first month the CDC would only allow testing for those with severe symptoms or those who were at high risk because of their travel history. That leaves out a significant number of people who had mild or no symptoms and who acquired the virus locally during a time when everyone thought it came from an undercooked bat in Wuhan.

 

3) Of those “confirmed deaths” you have no idea how many are really directly related to covid19. There are multiple reports of hospitals adding on the diagnosis in unconfirmed deaths because of better reimbursement. There is also a report of hundreds of deaths From before testing being reported as Covid19 posthumously “because the clinical picture fit.”

 

Don’t believe everything you see on the nightly news.

 

Almost 90,000 dead in two months WITH A SHUTDOWN. There is no spin or excuse making that can turn that into "nothing".