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The usual Tuesday afternoon softball (Georgia is weird) got canceled but football practice went on the same as always. So I went down there, already feeling like a speck of fly ship in the greater scheme, and asked the coach if he thought there would be a game to prepare for.That night, incredibly, high school sports went on in our area and I went to a volleyball game. Can't really say I "covered" it as much as wrote about the scene. At least it filled space.
Jesus.
The usual Tuesday afternoon softball (Georgia is weird) got canceled but football practice went on the same as always. So I went down there, already feeling like a speck of fly ship in the greater scheme, and asked the coach if he thought there would be a game to prepare for.
"I'm sure there will be. 50 million Chinese don't give a darn whether we play or not."
And sure enough, the GHSA was determined to go full Pete Rozelle until late morning Friday. Once they pulled the plug, virtually all of the independent school league did the same.
Virtually.
As far as I know I covered the only high school football game in Georgia that Friday. Some church academy south of Atlanta was halfway down the road to Valdosta when the word came down to cancel and they didn't want to scrub the game because it was a stopover on the way to a school-wide Orlando trip.
So I wrote it up the best I knew how, heavy on emotions and quotes about the gravity of the moment and the bare minimum of play by play shoved to the bottom. I may have even violated the sacred rule about putting the final score in the lede.
But I still felt like half a speck.
What the GHSA did was tack that week's games onto the end of the season and push the playoffs back a week (no small feat when the semifinals were at the Georgia Dome). But that didn't work for almighty Valdosta, who was set to host Lincoln High out of Tallahashee and didn't want to lose the gate. So they had Monday night football that week and a short turnaround to the next game.
That one didn't seem as tone deaf to me for whatever reason. The mood was still pretty tense (it's an Air Force town and we all knew what was coming next) but the shock was wearing off and people were ready for a temporary distraction by then.