FORT SMITH, Arkansas — It’s almost time for Friday night lights and many people may be wondering if high school football games will look like last year or pre-pandemic.
“I think the community, the state, the nation is excited to get back to somewhat of normalcy, so we are going to have that here in Fort Smith. We expect a big crowd,” Michael Beaumont said.
The battle of Rogers Avenue, where Fort Smith Northside and Southside play each other will be the first high school football game of the season held a week from today.
Director of athletics for Fort Smith Public Schools, Michael Beaumont says while masks aren’t required since it’s an outdoor event, they will be encouraging people to wear masks and to social distance. He says they want to make sure everyone stays safe.
“We want that not just for our community members but for sure for our kids. We are never going to make a decision or put anybody in harm’s way but some of these restrictions, especially for outdoor, we want to leave it to the person to decide what they are comfortable with,” said Beaumont.
The Arkansas Activities Association that sanctions high school sports in our state says the COVID-19 directives put out by the Arkansas Department of Health for sports last school year how now turned into guidance, so this year it will be up to each school district to make their own decisions.
“Last year, it was less than 10% of the games had quarantine issues in them. It’s kind of yet to be seen how that is going to play out,” Dr. Joey Walters said.
Arkansas Activities Association Deputy Executive Director, Dr. Joey Walters says this football season if a team can’t play a game because of quarantines or positive cases, they will have to take a loss for the game unless both teams have a common open date to make up the game. He also says our state was fortunate last year to be able to give high school students a full experience with extracurricular activities and they’re happy to be able to do that again this year.
“To give our students a sense of normalcy. We all know how important extracurricular activities are to the school experience, better grades, less discipline, less loss of class time and so forth, so we hope we can continue with their efforts to have a great year,” said Walters.
We also spoke to Bentonville and Fayetteville school districts. The school districts also say they will be encouraging mask-wearing in their stands and will also be back to 100% capacity.