The Martin High School athletic calendar on the district’s web site indicates an MHSAA semifinals football contest Tuesday at Adrian Lenawee Christian.
Prospects for such a game appear to be dim in the wake of the extension of closures of highs schools in Michigan because of the Covid-19 virus pandemic. The game was postponed last month because of the Coronavirus shutdown and rescheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 15.
However, the Michigan Department of Health and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Monday announced the “pause” would be extended for another 12 days, effectively until after Sunday, Dec. 20.
The annual Christmas-New Year’s break starts Monday, Dec. 21, for almost all schools in the state, so the students will not return to high schools until Monday, Jan. 4. Unless there is a miracle, it doesn’t look like anybody will be playing high school sports until January 2021. And they will be playing basketball, wrestling, bowling and other winter sports.
If the above scenario is played out to its conclusion, and I think it will, regardless of what the MHSAA scrambles to do to save the conclusion of fall sports, Martin will be victimized for the second time by Covid-19. I stress victimized by the virus, not the health and political officials who have had to determine that young peoples’ lives are more important than playing even games we regard as important.
I suppose we won’t know just how good Martin’s eight-man football team was this year, a team that has lost only once on the gridiron in the past two years. The same is true for the Martin girls’ varsity basketball team, which saw its season abruptly ended in the regional finals in March, a team that lost only once and later avenged that defeat.
I would rather wonder how good these teams really were than wonder what all these young people could have accomplished, but were cut down in the prime of their lives because of a virus.
Lives are more important than sports. Or money.
“Lives are more important than sports. Or money.”
Embroider it on pillows, paint it on the wall, write it in Sharpie and affix it to the refrigerator. These are words to live by today, not die by.
Lives are precious, but if that were so there would be no abortions nor war, nor riots leading to death and destruction. Alas, we live in an imperfect world where the guilty thrive and innocent die… Every damn day!
We cannot stop living because China unleashed a virus upon the world. Are they our enemies? Yes, but the Democrats will acquiesce to their wants and desires no matter how many die. Quit being slaves and declare you are Americans.