Smokey Mountain Youth Football over before starts
Midway through the summer, questions and concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have already claimed their first victim of the fall sports season, as the Smokey Mountain Youth Football league has decided to cancel the 2020 season.
The decision, which was unanimous among the league’s leadership, comes after months of research and planning.
SMYC President Jeff Stiles said that after hours of discussion on June 16, the league’s leadership all agreed that canceling the season was the only possible move.
“Nobody can give us any answers about how to keep the kids safe,” Stiles said. “We’ve heard so many different things and nobody can even give us answers if we could have fans.
With no concrete guidelines with how to proceed and protect the players, Stiles said the leadership agreed that it was better to be safe, than sorry.
“I’m just afraid if one kid got it, it would spread through the whole conference like a wild fire. That’s the main reason. Everybody discussed it and was on the same page,” Stiles said.
“It’s just a bad situation, and I hate it. I love football just as much as anybody else, and I’d love to have a season, but none of the presidents want to jeopardize any of the kids safety.”
The league also faced the issue of trying to find insurance that would cover the players for the season, as the companies they had been using refused to cover the potential season.
“Another thing was that no insurance companies would cover it,” Stiles said. “And you can’t put a kid out there without insurance. A couple of months ago when we talked (league leadership) I told them to contact their insurance providers and everyone said the same thing.”