It’s too late, so don’t close the schools. And don’t stop the games.
Whatever chance we had to properly handle COVID is gone, and the best course now is just to say game on.
And don’t be stupid.
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said on Tuesday that athletic events should be suspended because of the recent surge in COVID cases.
Without issuing an order to call off the games, Whitley just acknowledged the obvious that social distancing during an athletic competition is difficult.
Exactly what did we think was going to happen? It’s like eating an hot fudge sundae in a deep fried burrito shell with a chaser of pepperoni pizza and not expecting the ensuing calories and fat.
Our ambition to re-open was latent with risks, and here we sit.
The NFL is not about to close. The NBA, NHL and MLB will all be returning in some form. The NCAA is operating in the same manner.
All the while game cancellations are routine, including now Texas A&M’s football date at Tennessee this weekend. The Aggies have too many COVID cases..
All of the above have deep financial stakes and will press through whatever barriers to play a game in front of a TV audience.
This leaves high school ball swinging on a shaky branch over the Sea of Postponement.
As someone with a kid who will soon “celebrate” her fourth week of school-imposed quarantine fun, keep going. Once we re-opened, we can’t close. That goes for high school and junior high games, too.
Talking to three different high school coaches and principals, all of whom asked not to be quoted for fear of going against its respective district policies, they all said the same thing: “We have to stay open.”
And, “We have to be smarter.”
If we desire for the games to continue, there is no escaping the reality that if hospital beds fill with too many patients, Judge Whitley is going to try to take away the football, volleyball, soccer ball and everything else associated with sports.
As the number of cases surge, the closer we get to the precipice.
There is no good way to do this, but we do have to figure it out. This starts by taking the realities of a COVID world seriously when the adults are, or are not, watching.
This means the adults also have to start acting like, well, adults.
This means what you think it means: Wash hands, keep your distance, wear a mask, etc. Don’t be a dummy.
Do all of these measures actually stop, or lessen, the spread the COVID? Common sense says they can’t hurt, so quit your whining and play ball with the rules so the kids can, too.
Less than no one wants to return to March or April, when craft time and puzzles were the highlights of the time.
According to a study conducted for the National Center for Biotechnology Information on the impact of school-age kids living at home, and going to school, during COVID, “These children have become more clingy, attention-seeking and more dependent on their parents due to the long term shift in their routine.
“It is presumed that children might resist going to school after the lock down gets over and may face difficulty in establishing rapport with their mentors after the schools reopen. Consequently, the constraint of movement imposed on them can have a long term negative effect on their overall psychological well being.”
Kids, in most cases, want nothing more than to get away from their parents, and vice versa.
Kids want to play the games, now more than ever.
So it’s our responsibility to do everything in our power to retain this reality. As any adult will tell you, high school sports is likely the finale for most students’ organized athletic careers.
This was never some hoax, as too often has been casually thrown around. The lame politically-charged allegation is insulting to the people who have had to fight the virus, the medical professionals who care for them, and the other nations who currently are in the same spot.
The whole thing is a mess, but at this point we just have to say game on. And not be so stupid.
