WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – The MIAA is the latest to cancel or postpone its fall sports season because of COVID-19 concerns.

Several recent high school grads so close to conquering their lifelong dreams of playing college football express how they feel about not having a fall season.

Freshman wide receiver at Ft. Hays State Alex Schremmer said, “Everything just seemed so good going on, we were doing everything right and then everybody got here and I guess they just took us out of it.”

Schremmer, also a Great Bend grad, was in Hays all summer going through workouts and position drills. He says everything was smooth sailing until people started moving into the dorms.

Trevion Mitchell, a freshman defensive back at Ft. Hays State said, “We can’t really practice or lift anymore. Then we found out yesterday that they canceled the season so everyone is pretty disappointed about that. Then we got tested.”

Mitchell, also a former Maize South player, said he’ll always look back on this time in his life and be slightly disappointed.

“I feel like the virus has taken so much away from our graduating class like prom, we didn’t even get a graduation, things like that. And now they’ve canceled football for us,” said Mitchell.

“Everybody’s ready for football season to start up, that’s what leads everybody into their weekends,” said Schremmer. “And then hearing that news, you don’t really have anything to look forward to during this fall.”

Newman University’s women’s soccer team is another program affected by the MIAA’s decision to cancel fall sports until 2021 due to COVID concerns. In less than three weeks, the Jest were supposed to take this field to play their first competition of the season.

“It just sucks knowing that we can’t play something that we’ve all worked for or played every single year since we were little kids,” said Mitchell.

Freshman defensive back at Ft. Hays State, Jared Givens said, “It was more expected seeing the cases rise in this state and in other states. I just expected it to be postponed.”

Former Wichita Northwest player, Givens said all he can do now is focus on school and wait for answers on the spring season.

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