Emergency Meeting In Minnesota Results In Resumption of High School Football, Volleyball

The Minnesota High School League (MSHL) decided Monday that football and volleyball will be held this fall. This comes after the two sports were moved to the spring back in August due to COVID concerns. Great news to see sports leagues around the country leaving media fear behind!

#BREAKING: Minnesota reinstates high school football and volleyball. #IHSA #ILGov #JesseRuiz

— Trost (@TrustTrost) September 21, 2020

After a 15-3 vote, football will now hold a six-game season with practice set up to begin the week of Sep. 28. The first games are expected to be played Oct. 9-10 to conclude the season around Thanksgiving.

The board reportedly gave priority to allowing players to play this fall, rather than worrying about a traditional tournament for the Prep Bowl Championship.

Exactly what we asked for

As long as science said that playing sports was safe for athletes, fall sports should go on. Local leadership is finally showing they’re hopping out of bed with politics and getting back to common sense.

Locking volleyball in for the fall with a 14-4 vote starts the season Sept. 28 and will start off with 10 days of practice. The season will repordedly feature 14 dual competitions during a 11-week schedule. Amazing how much maneuvering local sports can do while our national government shuffles their feet.

Keeping fall volleyball alive spared Minnesota athletes the trouble of choosing between club or school sports. Any volleyball player would also dig into basketball season if the MSHL couldn’t make the fall work.

For anyone needing reassurance, check out these numbers (by age) for athletes under the age of 20 who contracted COVID:

1-4 years old: 1 death (1,781 cases)

5-9 years old: 0 deaths (1,714 cases)

10-14 years old: 0 deaths (2,611 cases)

15-19 years old: 0 deaths (8,500 cases)

Science should bring comfort to all student athletes and board members in Minnesota. They are doing the right thing by bringing kids back to athletics and we’ll be better because of it. If we were ever going to take a step forward from COVID fear, this was the only way.

Minnesota football and volleyball is BACK and we should all start putting more pressure on our own local boards to do the same.