Let's talk about the issues, Fall Sports

My heart breaks for the student-athletes who had their seasons cut short last spring. Sports were such a big part of my high school. I was on the football team and then as a senior on the wrestling, track, and chess teams and can't imagine how things would have been without them. I fear my heart is going to break for this year's athletes as well.

I have heard a lot about masks, and Plexiglas shields, hybrid schedules too, but nothing about sports, until below.

From WJCB.com,

After closing it’s doors all day on Monday to sanitize, Buchholz High School reopened on Tuesday.

An employee at Buchholz tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, causing the closure. We are now learning that a football player at Buchholz and a basketball player at Newberry recently tested positive as well.

ACPS spokesperson Jackie Johnson says, “this was a student who was at the school for the football conditioning program and it turned out he had gotten the infection from his sister. But again, out of an abundance of caution, we cleaned the area where that student was, notified all the families in the football program and actually added another week to the break before those students come back. And then we had the same situation with a basketball player at Newberry High School.”

https://www.wcjb.com/2020/06/30/two-students-test-positive-for-covid-19-in-addition-to-buchholz-employee/

This time in my junior and senior years I was in summer gym with the rest of the football team conditioning. Today we don't have summer gym but teams still meet to condition.

The last thing we want to do is break the hearts of children who have already endured a lot but at some point optimism and hope become the breakers of worlds.

Preparing children for the inevitability might be better than ripping the band-aide off when the time comes.   

To read more, click the link, https://www.jacksonville.com/sports/20200701/coronavirus-fhsaa-task-force-recommends-delaying-start-but-no-final-decision?