Everyone knows that high school football can be an important part of a person’s high school years.  People always remember and look bad fondly on their high school sports experiences.  Participating in football is not only important to the select athletes that get college scholarships or go on to play football at higher levels.  Being able to play football is important to many more high school students for so many reasons.  Students get to learn unique skills, improve their physical abilities, compete in games, handle high pressure situations, perform in front of crowds of people, work hard at practice, learn how to achieve results through hard work and dedication, and spend time with teammates. Unfortunately, all of that has been taken away from high school football players for the time being due to the COVID virus. My brother, Alex, was preparing to play high school football for the first time as a junior.  He has had to work out mostly on his own.  Even when the team had practices, they were not like usual football practices: “We were not allowed to come into contact with each other, so it is harder to practice because football is a contact sport.” 

Football is not the only sport that has been impacted.  High school athletes have been negatively impacted across the spectrum. Alex Valentini has played high school volleyball since freshman year and was looking forward to preparing to play on the varsity team but “volleyball has been completely shut down due to the virus.”   

But there is a chance that spring sports could enjoy full seasons in 2021, even if they are delayed a month or two.  There has been a lot of positive news about vaccines and it has been shown that the virus is not spreading as much in schools as it has in other places, so schools may be opening back up and getting back to normal in the near future. 

It is very important that high school athletes be able to play football this season.  Playing the season in the spring instead of the fall will seem very unusual to everyone involved, but the athletes can make the most of it.  Strong coaching can offset any harm the delays have caused.  Good attitudes and hard work will permit the athletes to be prepared, maybe even more than ever before.  According to Alex, “We are using the time that we can work out and get stronger before the season starts”.  As long as there is a strong argument to be made that playing football will not escalate the spread of the virus, high school athletes need to be allowed to play the football season!