It’s no secret that nearly every high school athlete has aspirations of one day competing in college or the pros. Athletes are prone to fantasizing about a scout walking up to them after a game and offering a full ride to the college of their dreams. This year, unfortunately, these dreams could be pushed away by the difficulties presented by COVID-19.

On Sept. 16, the NCAA extended their ban on in-person recruitment for Division 1 schools to Jan. 1. All official and non-official campus visits are being discouraged as well. This is a huge blow to many of our athletes — specifically football, tennis, cross country, swimming, and volleyball athletes, whose seasons almost entirely take place during the ban. Because of this, our athletes may feel harder pressed to commit to a lower-level school that they might not even want to go to. So how are our sports programs handling their events amidst the coronavirus?

Despite precautions being taken school-wide, misfortune has struck many teams this season. The cross country teams were forced to run the district meet separately from opposing results. As such, both squads, known to be district powerhouses, failed to move on as a team to the regional meet. Also last week, the tennis team was forced to forfeit their playoff match against Cy-Fair. Both of these occurrences were due to the spike in cases at the school. Earlier in the season, both JV volleyball and football were forced to reschedule matches due to outbreaks among each team, respectively. Thankfully both squads recovered and are back to playing games.

Hopefully, an end to the NCAA ban will arrive quickly and give many of our athletes, particularly seniors, a chance to prove themselves to the coaches of the schools of their dreams.