As we shift gears into basketball season, one thing remains a constant during the current 2020-21 school year.
We continue to face obstacles with the COVID pandemic.
However, those obstacles are very different from football season.
The Mississippi High School Activities Association flirted with moving the 2020 season to the spring prior to the beginning of the school year.
Clarksdale High School head coach Henry Johnson, who serves on the MHSAA board, stated he was against the idea when I asked him about it for a story prior to the season.
I agree it would not have been a good idea because you would have played one football season in the spring and then started back up again a few months later in the fall of 2021. Bodies need time to rest when you play a game as physical as football.
Having back-to-back seasons a few months apart would have seriously increased the risk of injury. I understand the idea of moving football season would have been to keep the athletes safe and protect them from health problems. In reality, moving the season would have traded one health problem for another.
Let's think this one through
Now, we are in basketball season and things are different.
All four of our high schools – Clarksdale, Coahoma County, Coahoma Early College and Lee Academy - have been forced to cancel games for one reason or another due to the COVID pandemic. Coahoma Community College will be starting its season in February.
I personally believe the answer is to move all our basketball seasons to the spring. Then we can extend baseball, softball, track and all other spring sports into the summer.
Unlike football, if we are forced to have basketball seasons so close to one another, the risk of injury is not nearly as great.
Basketball also presents a greater risk of COVID than any sport I can think of. Athletes are making constant physical contact with one another moving up and down the court. Basketball players do not wear the same equipment as football players.
Football players’ equipment consists of a helmet, shoulder pads, gloves, shoes, and thigh and knee pads, a mouthguard, and a jockstrap or compression shorts with or without a protective cup. Basketball players wear shoes, shorts and a tank top. Even with a mask, basketball players would not be protected from COVID with all of the physical contact.
Basketball games are also indoors. That presents a greater risk than an outdoor football game.
If all goes as we hope, a vaccine could be available by the spring. I say let’s wait and see what happens. If we do have a vaccine, our teams would have full seasons, even though they were late, with no abbreviated schedules. That would mean more games and, in the case of many seniors, more opportunities to impress college recruits. That goes for all four of our high schools and CCC. Most junior college athletes are looking to continue their careers at four-year schools.
A league wide mandate to postpone the season, whether it is from the MHSAA, Mississippi Association of Independent Schools or Mississippi Association of Community College Conference, would level the playing field for all athletes. One school would not have to worry about canceling its games in the midst of the pandemic and losing its edge.
Postponing the season would also lead to better officiating.
You make the call
You may have seen in a recent Clarksdale Press Register where Tunica Academy head basketball coach Jeff Dalton was ejected after having issues with officiating at Lee Academy.
I also heard many people take issue with the officiating when Coahoma County played at Clarksdale.
Do not misunderstand me.
Many of the officials do a great job and their knowledge and experience shows on the court.
The officials who may be a little less experienced are doing the best they can, but they have been thrown into some tough and unfair circumstances.
COVID is the cause of the officiating issues we have seen in the early part of the basketball season. We are currently experiencing a shortage of officials.
I believe pushing the season back to when we are close to having a proven vaccine that works would make a huge difference.
Canceling the season should always be a last resort. Kids only have one chance at high school and junior college. We should have our basketball seasons, but make them safe for everyone.
That means moving basketball season to sometime back in the spring.
