The Snoop

I’ve never claimed to be a sports fan.

Growing up in our house was all about camping, dune buggies, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, CB’s, ham radio, and reading.

Team sports?

Not so much. 

I was never so glad as when I no longer had to take PE in high school.

So maybe I’m missing something with Ava and Missouri’s plan to allow high school sports during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After all we know about how COVID-19 is transmitted, we are planning to:

Take a group of high school boys from our school.

Take a group of high school boys from another school who have just traveled into town on a packed bus.

Make them play a game that gets them breathing hard and dripping with sweat.

Not only encourage physical contact but require it.

Make them chase a common object that gets passed from player to player.

Do all of that in front of a crowd.

I’m not sure you can design a situation that will more reliably transmit COVID-19.

It’s not a matter of if.

It’s a matter of when.

And then it’s a matter of response. 

Will players keep symptoms secret until the game is over? 

Will coaches pull their star players at the first sign of symptoms? 

Will entire teams be quarantined as a result of one player testing positive? Or after exposure to another team with a tested-positive player? 

Will the schools be able to maintain any kind of schedule as teams move in and out of quarantine? 

Will tournament results mean anything if half of the schools that normally attend aren’t there?

Ava schools shut down sports this spring when Ava had zero cases of COVID-19. 

That’s no longer the case. 

COVID-19 has found Ava. Missouri is seeing the third-fastest spread of the virus in the United States.

The Big 10 canceled college football. The Mid-American Conference canceled football. The Pac-12 canceled football. The Missouri Valley Football Conference delayed its season until spring.

If colleges can’t figure out how to safely play football in a COVID-19 world, why is Ava firing up football teams?