Youth football in Wichita postponed from fall to spring because of COVID-19 concerns
Kansas will see some spring football. At the youth level, anyway.
As college football weighs its options for the 2020 fall season, the City of Wichita made the move to postpone its youth football season to the spring amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision was made in observance of Sedgwick County recommendations regarding “playing football and close contact sports,” according to a city news release.
“We are sorry that we have to postpone this year’s season,” Troy Houtman, parks and recreation director for the City of Wichita, said in the release. “Ensuring we can keep our participants safe is our No. 1 priority, and we look forward to when we can host our youth football players safely again.”
Details and a schedule will be released when available, the release stated.
Kansas high school football is set to move forward as scheduled this year, with practices for fall sports beginning Aug. 17 and competitions starting as early as Aug. 21. The first football games will take place Sept. 4.
Houtman told The Eagle that the City of Wichita took into consideration the Kansas State High School Activities Association executive board’s recent decision to move along with fall sports, but ultimately, the biggest factor in the city’s decision was the recommendation of Sedgwick County, which advised against holding any contact sports.
Houtman said he believes that same recommendation is being sent to high school and middle schools in Sedgwick County, too.
“We talked about how we could isolate folks and how we could reduce the amount of numbers coming to the games, making sure everyone is wearing masks and other precautions,” Houtman said. “But it became more and more apparent that it was going to be really difficult to adhere to all of those requirements, and if we did, that would also be going against the county’s recommendation.”
The City of Wichita wrestled with this decision for months, Houtman said. The city even looked into purchasing face shields for all youth football players, a cost of about $25,000. With too many unknowns, moving the season to the spring made the most sense, he said.
With the decision to postpone, Houtman said the status of next year’s fall season is up in the air, too. He said it is possible that there will be spring and fall football in 2021, but those decisions have not yet been made.
“This was just a really tough decision,” Houtman said. “We researched this a lot. We weighed the pros and cons. We just really want to make sure that our youth stay engaged and healthy and active. It was just too much of a risk right now.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 11:00 AM.