High school sports are starting to kick off all around Pennsylvania, and don’t under-estimate the role that the state’s number one super-fans have played in making that happen:

The athletes’ parents.

They have been a force in this debate from the start, first in making clear that they want their whole families to have a chance to pursue their shared passions; and then, just as importantly, when they got their wish they let their sons and daughter take to the practice fields, coronavirus be damned.

“I have to say overwhelmingly — and I emphasize that, overwhelmingly — everyone wants high school sports to resume, and they (parents and fans) want to be able to attend,” said Cumberland Valley school board member Bud Shaffner, who said he’s been inundated with messages to that effect from parents in that suburban Cumberland County district.

Schools from the East Shore to the West Shore in the Harrisburg area, and really all over Pennsylvania, say they are reporting sports participation numbers that are significantly unchanged from prior years. And while there are also families who have held their children back, where that is happening they are generally being counted in ones and twos.

“It’s kind of funny. We’ve had student-athletes who have opted to go totally virtual for their school day. But they will still come and attend practices and games,” said Lower Dauphin High School Athletic Director Dave Bitting. “To me, I think those families feel confident that we are doing everything in our power to provide the safest venue for them… and it enables them to have something to look forward to.”

Rather than cries of don’t play, the far, far noisier chorus is that of the parents who live in districts where administrators — or even entire leagues— have decided not to play.

They are pressing for change.

Hear out Liz Wright, a nursing home worker who has been waiting for this fall for years, dreaming that a good football season at Harrisburg High School could be her son John McNeil’s ticket to a college education, and to a better future. Harrisburg is one of a handful of midstate schools that has thus far opted out of all fall sports.

“My thing is, this is my son’s last year,” Wright said. “… And it’s hard for me because I’m a single parent. And as far as going to college? It’s hard. So if I could get help, you know, with whether he gets a scholarship, a half-scholarship, full scholarship. That’s going to be a big help.

“As far as his education, I’m on top of his education. I come to the meetings and all that type of stuff,” Wright continued. ”But sports is a big key here, and that’s what gets a lot of our kids out of Harrisburg.”

Most of the current postponements — by PennLive’s latest count, about 100 Pennsylvania schools have postponed or canceled their fall seasons to date — are concentrated in Philadelphia and its heavily-populated suburbs.

So parents there are rallying to save the season.

In other parts of the state, schools are playing sports and the battle has shifted to opening up the stands and stadiums to crowds greater than the 250-person limit on outdoor gatherings that had been imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf, but struck down in a federal court decision earlier this week.

At a press appearance Wednesday, Wolf said his Education Department will be issuing revised recommendations on crowds that are responsive to Judge William Stickman’s ruling as early as Thursday.

Wolf also has until Monday to act on a separate bill passed by the state legislature earlier this month with significant bipartisan support that would give decision-making power on holding sports and all other extra-curricular activities, and setting attendance limits for those events, to local school boards.

Wolf, who recommended against playing sports this fall but said he would leave the decision to school districts, said he plans to veto the bill, which could set up a contentious override battle at the Capitol.

Erin Clark, mother of a senior football player at Everett High School in Bedford County, noted at Friday’s home opener there two tickets were allocated for senior football players, band members and cheerleaders only.

“We all wore our masks in, found our usual places in the stands and looked around like: ‘What in the world is this?’ Clark told PennLive. “It wasn’t a Friday night feel… As I looked around, you could’ve easily fit so many more people in that stadium with no problem distancing.

“Bedford Speedway is jammed packed every weekend with tons of people watching,” Clark added. “So why, why are these kids and us being punished?”

What’s interesting is that most of these parents are banging the drum for sports, even as most college campuses — generally with much better access to testing protocols and the resources to pay for them — have decided to shut their athletic programs down for the fall semester.

While Penn State and Pitt are now playing football this fall, schools in other Division I leagues like the Ivy (University of Pennsylvania) and Patriot (Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell) leagues have canceled all fall sports, as have the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference covering the 14 state-owned universities, and many Division III leagues including the Pennsylvania-based Centennial and Middle Atlantic conferences.

But the high school athletes’ parents say they see a big distinction between college and their situation.

“They’re living in their home in high school, you know. We can control what they’re doing, and they’re not like all getting together and partying and doing things” that could put them at risk, said Maria Shaffer, a parent of two Lower Dauphin High School field hockey players.

“I think that (college) is just a totally different dynamic than a high school where they’re living at home still.”

The prep sports issue has played out differently across the country.

Of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states, Maryland has moved all high school fall sports to the spring, and New York has moved football and volleyball to the spring. New Jersey is planning to go ahead with all of its outdoor sports, but is pushing two indoor sports – gymnastics and girls volleyball – to the spring.

For many families of high school athletes in Pennsylvania, there are two overriding feelings: 1) That the virus is largely under control now, or is certainly a manageable risk; and 2) That these high school years are a capstone experience that cannot be replicated — no one gets a chance to arbitrarily repeat their high school years.

Let’s take the health piece first.

There is a consistent belief among the most of the parents reached for this story that it’s time to put the lessons learned about coronavirus to use, and get on with living better lives safely.

Shaffer noted that, as an elementary school teacher herself, she has had to make major adjustments in her work life so that kids can be back in school. But she’s done it, because she believes it makes for a better quality of life for everyone. To her, the same goes for her daughters’ sports.

“I feel like if we’re doing that in our jobs, if we’re doing that in our schools, then we should be able to do that in kids’ activities as well,” Shaffer said. “My two high schoolers, they don’t have any health issues that concern my husband or myself, or them, so as long as we follow the rules, we feel that it’s more beneficial for them to be playing than not to be playing.”

Wright, the Harrisburg mom, agreed.

“I work in a nursing home, so I’ve been working around COVID forever,” she said Monday. “We have to gown up. We wear masks. We wear gloves. We do all that, and guess what? Some of those employees are still getting it.”

So in her view, Wright said, “this is the new norm. This is not changing. So… Why not give them (the student-athletes) a chance and an opportunity.”

It’s not as if everyone expects that these fall seasons will necessarily be COVID-19 free, either. They haven’t been.

At Lower Dauphin, Bitting noted Friday one of the school’s sports teams had to be shut down for a few weeks this summer because one of the players was showing symptoms while in attendance.

But the parents believe that, as COVID risks go, playing outdoor field sports aren’t terribly high, especially given expected compliance with masking rules, temperature checks and other self-screening, and tight limits on locker room use and other group gatherings.

“You go up and take a ball from someone, you’re there for a couple seconds,” Shaffer said. “I just don’t see, you know, the threat of transmitting it from a player on Hershey to a player on Lower Dauphin. I don’t see it happening. I’m not worried about it at all.”

Emotional health matters, too, some said.

“A couple of the parents that I’ve talked to, their kids’ attitude is different, and not in a good way,” said Melissa Dixson, the mother of a senior at Avon Grove High School in Chester County who is waiting to see if he’ll have a last soccer season or not.

“They’re frustrated… Some of our kids are like: ‘We’re doing everything we’re supposed to and they’re not going to let us compete, so why should we do anything else?’” Dixson told PennLive this week. “And as a parent, I can’t find a good enough reason for me, to tell my son why he can’t play.”

Then, there’s the YOLO argument: You Only Live Once.

Many of these families have built their lives together around their support for their children’s activities, made close friendships from them, and invested a lot of time and money in them.

High school sports, for most, will be the capstone of all that.

Just as most parents would never want to miss their child’s star turn in a school musical, or a band concert, or graduation ceremony, these high school sports seasons are kind of like one of those capstone moments that parents — with the friends that they’ve made along the way — don’t want to miss.

“This is something he’lI never be able to get back. Ever,” Wright said of her quarterback son. “It’s something he’s worked so hard for… and for us to not have that now, it’s heartbreaking. And it hurts.”

And yes it is true that for many sports — especially soccer, field hockey and volleyball in the fall — club sports are now in some cases more important to the primo athletes in terms of college recruitment. But most kids aren’t primo athletes, and even for those that are and are training year-round, there’s still a special charge to the annual high school seasons.

“Your high school, those are the kids you grew up with,” Wright said. “They’re like family…. That’s what makes it more special for the high school level is you grew up doing this together and we’re all one.”

For football players, like McNeil, high school also still the major avenue for players to get game action.

Shaffner, the Cumberland Valley school director, summed up a season of hearing from parents and other constituents in Cumberland Valley.

“Listen, we could have crawled into a shell years ago over SARS, over Avian Influenza, other so many other things,” Shaffner said.

“COVID is serious illness, and it needs be treated seriously. But you still need to live. You still need to enjoy life. And I’m heartbroken and I’m emotional over parents that can’t see their kids participate, whether it’s in band, whether it’s in cheerleading, whether it’s in any activity, because they only get that chance once.”