As high school football gets real Monday with the start of the PIAA’s heat acclimatization workouts, many still have trepidation going forward with a fall sports season in the face of a national pandemic.

As Wilson’s school board signed off on fall sports last week, several board members expressed deep concern about the viability of a safe return in the age of the coronavirus.

They are not alone. More than 80 schools across Pennsylvania — most crammed into the southeast corner of the state, PA’s original COVID-19 hot spot — have suspended fall activities.

Debates rage across social media. Many believe this coronavirus thing has been blown out of proportion, and that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has overreacted. Others believe the rest of us are crazy to think we can play football and volleyball and water polo and not expect it to end in complete disaster.

The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, often a cautious and conservative body, moved boldly ahead this summer in the face of the governor’s recommendation not to proceed.

The PIAA did so based in large part on the recommendation of its own Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, an 18-member panel composed of physicians, certified athletic trainers and health professionals that laid out exhaustive return to play protocols (over 26 pages).

Voluntary workouts for high school programs across the state, involving more than 100,000 student-athletes, began July 1. Summer baseball and softball leagues went on, as did AAU basketball programs and the like.

And the outcome?

“You haven’t read anything about big outbreaks,” said Dr. Thomas Kohl, a Wyomissing physician and a member of the SMAC.

There have been a handful of positive cases reported at Berks schools, and workouts were shut down at several others when athletes had contact with positive cases, or potential positive cases.

Nothing close to an outbreak, though. No team-wide spreads. No cause for alarm. No scientific reason to shut down sports on a wide scale.

The health and safety guidelines developed by the PIAA and local school districts to mitigate the spread of coronavirus must be working, right?

The kids and coaches, they’re taking this stuff seriously, no?

Can we all agree on that much?

“If the proper precautions are being taken, and (if) those athletes and the coaches and the parents are really buying into it, we can make this ‘relatively’ safe,” said former Wilson athletic trainer John Moyer, a longtime member of the SMAC.

Summer workouts haven’t resembled those of the past. There are temperature checks and masks and huge bottles of hand sanitizer. The athletes are kept spread out, work in smaller groups when possible and are constantly reminded to sanitize shared equipment and social-distance.

Hugs, high-fives and fist bumps? Things of the past.

Moyer helped compile a study several weeks ago that showed the coronavirus has been practically nonexistent among high school athletes.

Data was collected from more than 35,000 Pennsylvania athletes since July 1; just eight tested positive for coronavirus.

Eight.

That’s a fraction of a fraction of a percent.  …similar to the chances of the average golfer sinking a hole in one.

The study was far from comprehensive. Some areas of the state, including Philadelphia, did not participate (many Philly schools don’t have their own athletic trainers, who compiled this data).

Still, triple the results and the positive cases would still be infinitely small.

The PIAA should have trumpeted this study to combat the Wolf administration’s campaign against sports. While Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine was serving up numbers from Georgia or mentioning outbreaks on college campuses to support her side, the PIAA developed relevant numbers.

“This is real-life data,” said Kohl. “This isn’t Dr. Levine talking about a sports camp in Georgia. These are high schools in Pennsylvania during the pandemic, employing their programs, and you’re seeing success with this.

“These numbers were compiled in real time, in our state; they’re not anecdotal; they’re not from somewhere else in the country. We’re looking at the actual population (of student-athletes) that we’re talking about.”

Voluntary workouts and contact practice, which begins next week in football, are entirely different, of course.

Football is the sport that most concerns SMAC members, for obvious reasons. Players, breathing hard, line up literally in each other’s faces on each play. They crash into one another 100 times per game. Many plays end with large piles of bodies tangled in a tight space.

“It’s a collision sport,” Kohl said. “Part of the game is to run into the other person. That adds extra potential risk.”

“Football, because of the close contact on every play, is definitely a concern,” Moyer said, “and soccer is right there, as well. You have two sweaty kids going up for a head ball, there’s going to be an exchange of sweat.”

Girls volleyball and water polo are played indoors, which increases the risk over sports that are played outdoors.

Assuredly there will a higher percentage of positive cases across the state as contests in contact sports begin in a few weeks.

There is no guarantee for complete safety.

In life, especially in sports, there never are.

“We are concerned, no doubt,” Moyer said. “It’s going to take a lot of work. But if the (health and safety) rules are followed to the ‘T’ we feel they can have success. And we feel that we should at least give them the opportunity to try.”

HOT OFF THE PRESSES-The @EastPennConf18 fall schedules have been approved. Here is the Football schedule with 5-game league action within county beginning 10-2. @PIAADistrictXI @PIAASports @HSFBamerica @EPAFootball pic.twitter.com/RrceM8TcQA

— D11Sports (@D11Sports) August 28, 2020