Over the weekend, a tweet surfaced via John Rodkey's Twitter account, stating University Interscholastic League Executive Director Dr. Charles Breithaupt says their plan is to start the 2020 Texas high school football season on time and with a full schedule.
Unfortunately, this isn't new news. This has actually been the UIL's course of action the entire time.
In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated he didn't expect for college stadiums to be at full capacity, but he never once mentioned not having a season.
Abbott had initially said sports stadiums would be allowed to operate at 25 percent capacity. He revised that to 50 percent just a week later, giving rise to hopes that Texas would have a green light to potentially fill stadiums.
Football is king in Texas, and the UIL has even made plans to allow schools to broadcast games, which has never happened before.
The fact that the entire governing body of Texas high school football is making alternative plans to the upcoming season should indicate there will be a season. Even if spectators are unable to attend with a mask.
In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson used a press conference last week to pleadin with Arkansans: If you want a football season, then you should wear a mask.
"If we want football, high school football, high school sports this year and, beyond that in college, then we need to concentrate on this mask now," Hutchinson said. "There's a connection between the two. We wear our masks, we reduce the cases, we reduce the growth, we stop the spread of the virus. And that puts us in a better position to have some type of team sports this fall.
"This is the sobering reality of what COVID-19 can result in."
In my opinion, as a sports journalist, I hope we have high school sports because the Class of 2020 was robbed of so much already. The graduating Class of 2020 in high school and college was as unique as any we've seen in our lifetime.
My opinion as an American who's concerned about other Americans is that we must do whatever state and local official mandate in order for us to continue to go to the games we love.