High school football to test COVID-free county
West Texas community members say ‘it’s a matter of when’ a case will emerge now that school is back and the season has begun
GAIL — You won’t find coronavirus in this small West Texas county, but you’ll find reminders of it.
The county judge has over 19,000 N-95s ready to go, just in case, but if you walk around town during non-school hours, you won’t see any masks on. Watch the Borden County Coyotes lift weights indoors and you’ll smell the disinfectant hanging in the air, even if it’s only in an abundance of caution here. Talk to the team manager, the one who’d be out there playing if not for a series of broken bones, and you’ll learn his grandfather, a resident of the neighboring county to the west, was the first person there to die from COVID-19.
For now, those are just reminders yet to penetrate this safe haven. COVID-19 has spread and infected nearly 6 million Americans since March, but Borden County — an area of over 600 people living about 75 miles south of Lubbock — has remained unscathed.
Not one positive case has been recorded, something only three counties in Texas and 21 nationwide can claim.
But the county has reached a complicated junction. School is back and football season started Thursday. Sports, like in most Texas towns, is important here, especially for a six-man powerhouse that’s seeking its 13th straight district title and fifth state championship since 2008. To accomplish that, the Coyotes will have to get on a bus — all 20 players, five managers and three coaches — and travel across a state where over 12,000 people have died from the virus.
People in Borden County will tell you, “it’s a matter of when COVID-19 emerges, not if” — and they know the high school football season could be the ultimate test.
“And now we’re running the risk — we’re jumping out there,” said Trey Richey, the longtime head coach of Borden County’s high school football team.
It’s a little piece of heaven, defensive coordinator Bubba Edwards said, down in “Gail America.”
“It’s just that we live in a bubble,” said new Borden County ISD Superintendent Stephanie Behrens, who started this summer, “but you watch the news every day and you’re aware of your surroundings and what’s going on in the world.”
Out here, on the fresh new turf of Coyote Stadium, it’s about preparing for the next opponent and focusing on a football season Richey and his team have to believe will happen. Out there — literally all around them — they’re reminded why it could all end at a moment’s notice. They saw it happen last spring when the UIL shut down the state basketball tournament. The baseball team was showing promise at the time and the boys track team had run one of the fastest early season relays in quite some time. State championships were on their minds; then spring sports were canceled.
“I never thought I’d miss track,” said senior running back Tommy Kingston.
“It’s our last time,” said senior quarterback Trey Edwards, “and you don’t know when it’s going to end because of COVID, so you have to have a different look at it now.”
It’s given the players an appreciation for what they have and an understanding of what it means to play football in a place where there’s no coronavirus. They heard about Loop, a six-man team southeast of them, quarantining their entire team due to one positive test. They understand in six-man football, where depth is nonexistent, that a positive case in Borden County could have serious repercussions.
But here’s the catch: If the Coyotes want to play, they have to go where coronavirus exists. They have to take that risk.