Full Disclosure: Red Light, Green Light

When virus pandemania hit in March, I naively assumed a medical breakthrough would strike like lightning and set everything back to normal before too long. While not the quick restart that I hoped for, we are slowly babystepping towards a new benchmark for “normal.” 

And as with first steps, they are unsteady, awkward and often unsuccessful.

With a few stumbles here and there, the kickoff to fall sports was a big leap in the right direction. I happily signed waiver-after-waiver to allow my son to play 7th grade football. My knowledge of legalese is limited, so I may have also unwittingly agreed to making my kid a living organ donor, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get him back into action with his buddies and follow necessary COVID prevention protocols. After all, out of an abundance of optimism, I had already invested in pricey, soon-to-be-outgrown football cleats and a flashy mouth guard that was sure to inflict third degree burns during our annual melt-to-fit session and burn victim roleplay. 

It’s a small price to pay to play. 

The first two months of youth football have gone off without a hitch–for the program, that is. Naturally, my son broke an obnoxiously insignificant toe doing something non-football related and foolish, and had to sit out for two weeks. However, the youth league, as a whole, has prevailed to the delight of limited, but masked, spectators. 

As independent sports leagues are seizing the moment and making the necessary health and safety modifications to their sports, it’s pretty much business as usual: Youth sports world domination. And during this time of sports re-entry, it is bittersweet knowing that the New Canaan High School football team has been holding out hope to start some semblance of a season. 

Having my overeager youth player unable to participate in his favorite sport was agonizing enough. But it was only two weeks. I can’t begin to imagine a high school athlete’s frame of mind during months of uncertainty.

While our state COVID numbers were at their lowest and New Canaan’s youngest stars have successfully taken to the gridiron, the high school players have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for guidance on their season. Even I, a non-high school football parent, have become so consumed with every latest twist and turn in the state’s decision-making on the sport that I now actively follow the Twitter accounts of the Connecitcut Department of Public Health (riveting) and the CIAC for up-to-the-moment press releases. And let me tell you, it’s been an endless game of Red Light, Green Light for the football team, and source of torment for their fragile emotions.

Unlike almost every other school sport, tackle football has no established private leagues that play in the offseason. Until now, it’s been fall or nothing. 

Since the DPH seems dead-set against 11v11 football this autumn, there is talk of ameliorating the unfortunate situation by establishing a private league, a 7v7 intramural program, and even deferring the sport to spring. 

All the options on the table are mind-blowingly less than ideal. I cannot fathom that the student-athletes and coaches want to play a deconstructed version of football or wait until spring. 

However, I support any effort that gives all the left out athletes a chance to participate this year.

As a football purist, it’s hard to swallow 7v7 as a replacement for the season, but you take what you can get—isn’t that the theme of 2020? By removing four key football players from the on-field lineup, a statement could be made that those other athletes/positions are dispensable. The lineman that are not used in 7v7 are anything but trivial: They are often the unsung heroes of the team, who grind it out so that the showcase “skill” players can shine. I mean, didn’t we all watch those old holiday commercials in which an appreciative Dan Marino gifts his linemen the super-luxe Isotoner gloves? Those big guys on the line pour their hearts and souls into the game and often do not get recognized for their extraordinary effort. 

The battle that goes on between the offensive and defensive lines is what makes football so primal and electric—therefore, I am somewhat relieved that there has been mention of implementing “Gladiator Games” for those excluded from 7v7. My imagination is running wild with this concept, so I am hoping that it doesn’t involve huge guys wearing kilts and hurling tree trunks at each other. I suppose now is the time to improvise and give our sidelined athletes something—even if no one really knows what it is. 

As trees start to change color now, it has finally sunk in that traditional fall high school football, as we have known it, will not happen. When I was a senior at New Canaan High School, I would have lost my mind if I hadn’t played my final soccer season with my teammates. My identity at that point in my life revolved around playing my sport and competing. Case in point, my nickname around school (and beyond) had lovingly become Yellow Pescatello—a wink to all of the yellow cards I received for flagrant fouls on the field. You see, what I lacked in athletic ability, I made up for in passion, unbridled aggression. And exercise-induced asthma. 

You can’t have it all, but at least I had my final season and the thanks of a local surgeon who repaired a slew of ligaments around Fairfield County. 

While all the other sports got up and running, the Rams football team waited on its toes for a green light. I am so sorry for the athletes who were relying on this fall season to get recruited to play in college and receive scholarships. While my senior season only opened the door to play in a roller derby, I can hardly imagine what a setback this is to student-athletes who needed more game tape, more opportunity and more time with their football family.