It may not work out, but Kentucky is right to try to play high school football
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2020 Kentucky high school football preview
The 2020 high school football season kicked off Friday, Sept. 11. High school sports beat writer Jared Peck wrote numerous stories in the Herald-Leader and on Kentucky.com previewing the season around the city, region and state and highlighting the top players and games and rankings. Click below to read all of his stories in case you missed any of them.
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If we were living in pandemic-free normalcy, I can tell you precisely how my Friday night would be spent:
I would be among what would have likely been an overflow crowd at Frederick Douglass High School to see the defending Class 5A state runner-up Broncos face Class 6A power North Hardin in what will be the marquee game of the delayed opening weekend of the Kentucky high school football season.
How many times does one get to see a high school football game in which four players who have committed to playing the next season for the Kentucky Wildcats will be on the field?
That’s what you will have Friday at Douglass, with the Broncos’ Dekel Crowdus and Jager Burton going against their future UK teammates La’Vell Wright and Jordan Lovett of North Hardin.
How many times does one see a high school football game which features five underclassmen who already have scholarship offers from UK?
That’s what you will have Friday at Douglass, where Broncos juniors Dane Key and Ty Bryant and sophomores Thomas Howard and Isaiah Kenney join North Hardin sophomore Trevon Alexander in holding offers to play for Mark Stoops.
Alas, due to attendance restrictions necessitated by the efforts to contain the coronavirus, unless you have a close link to a participating player you are not going to be able to see Douglass-North Hardin in person.
Yet as disappointing as that is for those of us who are not related to players but enjoy watching high school football from the stands, there should be even greater satisfaction that the players are at least getting a chance to have a season.
For much of the summer, fears were strong that would not be the case.
Whether the decision to play high school football in the commonwealth during the pandemic of 2020 ultimately works out, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association — as well as the state government agencies to which the KHSAA reports — deserve credit for giving football a chance.
The risks in playing are obvious. It could turn out that the coronavirus spreads among players, among teams, during games.
Though the statistics suggest that COVID-19 will not prove fatal for the overwhelming majority of young people it infects, little is known about its long-term health effects.
In Kentucky, where many grandparents are directly involved with raising children, the greater immediate COVID-19 risk arising out of high school football is the possibility of infected players spreading it to older, more at-risk relatives.
Even while acknowledging those uncertainties, however, I keep going back to a conversation I had over the summer with veteran Johnson Central football coach Jim Matney.
The coach of the defending Class 4A state champions, Matney says the risks of not having a high school football season would also have been severe.
“I think the damage being done to our youngsters, our students and athletes from being isolated at home, I really feel like that damage will far exceed the damage caused by COVID,” Matney said.
“And I don’t say that lightly. I believe COVID is real. I think it’s scary. I think it is dangerous.
“But some of the things that are around kids growing up in their homes, whether it be malnutrition or troubled home lives, I think the damage (from that) is going to be so much greater than (from) COVID.”
Football, for all its issues, is vitally important in the lives of many teenage males.
For some who might not otherwise be dedicated to pursuing their education, the desire to be eligible to play football keeps them in school.
In an era when the traditional family structure is under stress, involvement with football provides positive male role models for many teens who may not otherwise have them.
During a time of isolation caused by the social distancing required to combat the coronavirus, having the connection to one’s peers that comes from being on a football team may serve as a meaningful hedge against depression.
That is an especially pressing concern right now.
A recent survey conducted for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about mental health during the pandemic found that one in four respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 said they had considered committing suicide in the past 30 days.
If playing high school football games in Kentucky this fall proves to be a mass COVID-19 spreader, we can stop playing.
But in attempting to have a season, we are at least giving young men in our state a chance to reap the benefits they derive from football participation during these uniquely challenging times.
So however this plays out, our state is right to try to have a high school football season in 2020.
Even if most of us are not going to get to see much of it in person.
