One common theme among those opposed to cancelling sports was to question why fall and winter sports could not be either postponed or rescheduled for a different part of the school year, rather than have a lost season. Randy Thompson, head coach for the Richard Montgomery High School varsity football team, summed up these matters - and the short-shrift the sports decision was given in the MCPS statement - in one tweet.
"The announcement from MCPS to cancel fall and winter sports instead of to postpone and reevaluate, seems unjust to our student athletes, certainly given the fashion in which it passed over in a single sentence," Thompson tweeted. "Why not [reevaluate] 1 month from now, two months from now?," tweeted Quince Orchard High School head football coach John Kelley.
An online petition has been started to play fall and winter sports in the spring. At the same time, some MCPS parents expressed relief at the announcement, believing that having students gathering for practices and games would have put the larger community at risk for Covid-19 transmission.
Thompson, Albert Einstein High School football defensive coordinator Joe Bruneel, and other MCPS coaches vowed to do what they could to salvage some benefit for their student athletes this coming school year. Bruneel proposed football coaches across the system organize for a spring football season. Thompson said he would try to get his players on film to showcase their talents for colleges.
3 comments:
I’m not sure I agree with the county decision either. But I’m no expert on the subject so I will have to defer to them.
Were there no supporting opinions or just these Tweets against the decision?
Bars and dining rooms open but schools and sports cancelled?
Makes no sense. Let's put schools ahead of bars.
Let's for a second take a step back and examine the full impact of fall/winter high school sports, on the athlete and the community. Yes, it's a unifying, spirit building, college impacting force. However, let's once again not take lightly the health threat being dealt with from a global pandemic, the Corona virus.
Athletes at the professional level are struggling with how to handle the same plight. The physical impact of sports as opposed to the distancing from others by six feet, runs smack in the face of health safety concerns. The bodily fluids exchanged, the communal showering, the heat of practices, sharing of equipment, and countless other unsanitary situation, immediately brings a halt to the thought of holding sporting events at any level. How do you also handle fan attendance at these events? Fifty-percent, twenty-five percent, no fans. what amount is safe? Let's not forget the main fact that for the fall at least, no onsite instruction will take place, thus the facilities are on lockdown. It would take a considerable number of staff to open each school just to accommodate sporting events.
Those of you who think the kids are missing an "opportunity", this is for "political gain", worry about "job security", or are waiting for some other government agency to make the first move; are seriously missing the point. Canceling sports is strictly for the health and safety of the participant, not your ulterior desire. Get over your selfish pride.
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