TEXAS — The high school football season only started for some schools a few weeks ago. The larger high schools in Texas, classes 6A and 5A, had to wait until this week to start practicing.
What You Need To Know
- Smaller schools have already started season, larger schools just started practice
- Texas coaches talk about difficulties off the field
- Texas High School Coaches Association put out a survey to 1A-4A schools to see what protocols they had in place and shared those answers with the coaches in classes 5A and 6A
“It’s the best feeling in the world and I know I’ll never take football for granted again after knowing how long we’ve not been able to do it,” said Lake Travis tight end Lake McRee.
There was a lot of uncertainty about this high school football season, but schools have changed a lot of protocols to try and do this as safely as possible.
“Crazy you know, just stressful, frustrating because every day something was changing,” said Bowie head coach Jeff Ables. “It’s all about the kids you know, whatever we have to do to keep them safe and keep them healthy and get to play, then we’re happy.”
“It’s been a different kind of anxiety,” said Johnson head coach Mark Soto. “Worrying about kids, worrying about coaches, are we doing the right procedures. Rather than worried about getting to the practice field on time, what the weather’s going to be like, the injuries you might have.”
All of the new normals are in place to allow the practices to happen. Players and coaches are wearing masks. They are trying to maintain social distancing when not going through drills and even making a lot of the meetings and film sessions virtual.
“Outside of in-between the whistles is much different, but once you’re out there on the field and the kids are playing, football is football.” said Lake Travis head coach Hank Carter.
For many kids, football is incredibly important and the majority of players really wanted this season to happen.
“Sometimes I would think if we’re actually having a season but I would just hope and pray that we do because a lot of people need football,” said Bowie wide receiver Jason Gaines.
“It means everything to us because we’ve worked so hard,” said Johnson quarterback Ty Reasoner. “For us to be able to get out here in helmets, we’re very thankful.”
While these schools were waiting their turn, they were paying attention to what was happening at the smaller schools that were already playing games. The Texas High School Coaches Association put out a survey to 1A-4A schools to see what protocols they had in place and shared those answers with the coaches in classes 5A and 6A.
“See what the sidelines look like, see what the coaches look like, the stands look like so we can adapt our campus over here and our stadiums over here,” said Soto. “It’s been a collaborative effort through all the coaches in the state of Texas.”
This week just marks the beginning of what all schools hope is a full season. They will have a few weeks of practice before being allowed to start playing games at the end of the month.
