It’s deja vu all over again amid COVID-19 uptick

This time last year, sportswriters across the nation were using spaces like this one to express concern, doubt even, about whether or not we’d get to pontificate in print about the athletes we cover, particularly on the high school level.

That’s because the COVID-19 pandemic was still very fresh, and at the time, there were no vaccines readily available to give us hope.

It caused us to wonder how high school athletics would approach the daunting task of policing the care and safety of athletes, coaches and other program workers, not to mention fans -or even if fans would be able to attend events.

Would there even be games, events, etc. for athletes to participate in, much less fans to attend?

That was last year’s million-dollar question that eventually got answered through a herky-jerky 2020-21 sports season filled with cancellations, reschedulings, players and coaches testing positive and some schools completely foregoing their seasons. We got through it, but it wasn’t even close to feeling like the kind of year in sports we’ve grown to appreciate.

Football games aren’t the same without fans cheering each big play or the sounds of the band punctuating every touchdown. Is high school basketball really high school basketball without boisterous student sections and spectators piling into smallish high school gyms?

Similar things could be said about volleyball, wrestling, cross country, track and field, golf, baseball, soccer. You name it. Beyond just the action on the field, the draw to each of these sports is the unique culture of interaction between athlete and fan that each sport brings, and our ability as sports scribes to creatively chronicle the action. All of that was sorely missed during the pandemic year.

But then came December 2020 and the first rollouts of the COVID-19 vaccines. And with it, a sliver of hope that high school sports might be able to resume a semblance of normalcy for the 2021-22 school year.

Although not completely nixed as in March 2020 when COVID-19 first became a thing, spring sports in 2021 still felt some of the effects of the pandemic. But by the time we were crowning state championships in basketball, baseball, tennis, softball and track and field, the feeling was that we’d gotten a handle on things. Case numbers and hospitalizations had dropped drastically and congruently with rising hopes of a return to pre-pandemic life on and off the athletic fields.

College and pro teams, both locally and abroad, were announcing returns to 100% stadium capacity. All seemed to be getting right in the sports world once again.

In fact, as recently as three weeks ago, I was prepared to use this space to provide a hearty and resounding, “Welcome back” to the sports season as we’ve known it. But, alas, I feel we’ve let up just enough to allow COVID-19 to mount a “fourth quarter comeback.” Just on the brink of a new and promising season, we’ve seen rising COVID-19 cases, thanks to the highly contagious delta variant. And these numbers have us asking some of the same questions and navigating some of the same concerns that had us baffled 365 days ago.

It feels so familiar – so painfully and frustratingly familiar.

Our high school sports writer JL Kirven mentioned in an article this week how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that everyone in K-12 schools including staff, students and visitors, should wear masks indoors whether they are vaccinated or not.

An article in Friday’s USA TODAY tells us how the CDC has deemed this delta variant to be similarly contagious to chickenpox or the measles.

It can still be caught and spread by fully vaccinated people, although the chances of grave illness seem to be drastically lower for those who have been vaccinated.

Still, across the Commonwealth, COVID-19 cases are rising to proportions we haven’t seen in the last five months. What does it all mean? Only that as we are inching closer to the return of high school sports, we’re also going to have to say, “Welcome back” to adaptability and at least the possibility that more of last year’s difficulties could emerge.

The good news is, high school athletic directors and coaches have the playbook now. They’ve been through this before, and whatever comes of this season won’t feel so foreign and new to them this time around.

As for that coveted return to normalcy? I hate to break it to you, but this might just be it.