High school football - and other sports - need to wait in North Carolina
We have a soft spot for high school football. For all prep sports, really, but especially for the Friday night games, the marching bands, the sometimes scary PTO hot dogs. Yes, football sometimes takes on outsized importance, especially in the South, but few things pull schools and communities together the same way.
But right now, in many of those communities, it is neither safe to be together nor smart to have teenagers on the field colliding with one another for hours each week. North Carolina’s public school districts should postpone football, along with any other full- or close-contact sports that could spread COVID-19. Private schools, which will be allowed to play football when Gov. Roy Cooper moves the state to Phase 3 of its reopening, also should strongly consider waiting to start. It’s just not safe right now.
Other states, including California, Georgia and our neighbor Virginia, have begun to push their fall sports seasons back weeks or, in California’s case, to the spring. Individual districts, some facing positive COVID tests in their football programs, also are shutting down the sport for now and perhaps for the fall.
The reasoning is simple: Each football play is an epidemiological nightmare, a choreography of collisions between players who are huddled together at the beginning of plays and in piles at the end.
This is true of all football, by the way, including the NFL and NCAA. We have no idea how pro and college programs will pull the 2020 season off safely — many colleges and conferences already have decided they can’t — but we do know they at least have a shot thanks to more rigorous testing and safety protocols. High school programs have fewer built-in COVID protections, and their players are therefore less protected from outbreaks.
Already this month, a Kentucky high school reported an outbreak of 18 football players, while at least six Utah schools have been affected by positive tests among players and staff. And while some want to believe that students are less vulnerable to COVID or less likely to pass it on, that’s an uncertain comfort. A large study this week from South Korea showed that while children younger than age 10 transmit COVID-19 to others much less often than adults do, those between the ages of 10-19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults. That Kentucky football outbreak? It also spread to three coaches and 17 family members and close contacts. That possibility should make any school administrator, district official or parent shudder.
The Kentucky outbreak, like others across the country, also happened in a rural community — a reminder that COVID-19 is not merely an urban concern. We believe different geographies should make COVID decisions based on their infection landscape, but with sports, there’s another consideration. A full season with state championships is possible only if most programs play at the same time. The North Carolina High School Athletic Association, which has delayed the start of fall sports until Sept. 1, should encourage that uniformity by moving football and other championships to the spring when there’s a better chance to safely complete seasons.
Yes, such a move would create conflicts between fall sports and spring sports, and smaller schools with more multi-sport athletes could especially be affected. A move to spring for football also could result in elite players skipping the season to protect their college dreams and scholarships.
None of those decisions will be easy. We hurt for all athletes who are seeing their seasons threatened. We worry about students who benefit from the structure and focus that sports provide, as well as athletes who might miss out on recruiting opportunities because their senior season has been delayed. But sports — especially those with contact — carry too much risk at the moment. Friday nights need to wait.