Prep athletes counting on us to do the right thing

It was a little over a week ago. I was bundled up outdoors, masked up, covering a high school football playoff game.

There was that buzz in the air that I hadn’t felt much in 2020.

An exciting playoff football game with a large crowd creating a lot of noise.

For a second, things felt normal again.

Then, I paused and I really looked around.

I saw a student section full of kids without masks on, screaming within inches of one another.

I saw two different communities piled into bleachers that were only offered on one side of the field. Hundreds of people sitting very closely to one another. Some masked, some not.

That day Michigan had reported a new record of 8,516 new positive COVID-19 cases.

I snapped back into reality and said out loud, “what are we doing?”

At that point I thought nothing would stop the machine of sports and life in general. We all wanted to be past this epidemic despite the realities that it was growing beyond our control.

Sunday’s developments came as a surprise in the fact that it happened, not that it wasn’t necessary.

Perhaps the majority of us aren’t capable of doing what’s

GEORGE SPITERI — FOR MEDIANEWS GROUP, FILE After originally being pushed back to the spring, the 2020 football season did take place in the fall, but was halted before regional championships due to an epidemic order that will last at least three weeks.