I hope I’m wrong about what I’m about to post. But even if I am, someone needs to start saying this out loud.

Based on conversations over the last four weeks with coaches, school administrators, district officials and parents, I don’t see how most fall sports happen in 2020.

The timeline of those conversations isn’t coincidental. It lines up with when we were forced into e-learning protocol for the remainder of this academic year.

As such, it was when many in positions of power admittedly started to think more realistically and speak more candidly.

In that time, I’ve learned a ton about what it would take to re-start sports. It is so much more involved than taking some padlocks off gates and having show up.

It’s a combination of safety, staffing, education and economic nightmares all rolled up into one.

When Covid-19 reared its ugly head enough for the SCHSL to postpone and then ultimately cancel the spring sports season, it was done as a precaution while we figured out exactly what we were dealing with. But now we know more, and we think we’ve only seen the beginning.

More testing means more confirmed positives, sure, but it also has proved that we weren’t finding and treating as many people dealing with Covid-19 (or asymptomatic people) as we could have.

So, now, after a little over 2 months of closures and cancellations, schools are starting to really crunch the numbers on what it would take to reopen should summer conditioning be allowed.

It isn’t pretty, especially when considering the testing/knowledge part of the equation.

Funding to allow Horry County student-athletes back on campuses for summer conditioning would stretch into the low six figures if the National Federation guidelines are followed to the T.

Schools will be expected to have enough cleaning supplies, masks, thermometers and gloves to adequately monitor student-athletes in six grades and coaches prior to most (if not all) workouts.

To be clear, this is not for Covid-19 testing. Just symptom monitoring.

What’s more, supplies aren’t exactly being overnighted to those who order them. Even though Horry County Schools rolled some of the money it saved from spring sports operations and travel into needs to fight the virus, shipments are expected to arrive in pieces.

The slow roll means the job can’t be completed properly all at once. Or for any real length of time.

Now compound that effect as more districts and other states place their own orders.

That’s the initial cost.

There’s also one associated with staffing.

The athletic trainers in place at each school are not super human. To ask them to put in the required off-the-clock hours to test athletes from every middle and HS-level sport participating in summer workouts is not feasible.

That leaves the districts either adding staff, paying for training for previously inexperienced adults to join the fight or using a third-party (think Doctor’s Care) to get involved. None of those are cheap.

But what about the cost of the horrific?

HCS (or most districts, for that matter) can't afford to fight multiple lawsuits that would follow should positive tests start appearing - out of negligence or improper monitoring and/or practices. Or even the perception of them.

By now, we know lawsuits can be filed with next to no real evidence of misdeeds. Even fighting the frivolous could be taxing to overcome.

So, what are we left to do?

I’ve heard several options, in particular with football. I’m going to stick with that one since it’s the biggie.

(I understand that there are other sports and they are just as important, but - as one administrator said - without football, districts will struggle to pay for tennis or swimming.)

The three most circulated ideas around these parts are:

1. Keep everything as scheduled and just see what happens.

2. Move to a seven-on-seven format that would decrease contact.

3. Front-load region games to early portion of the schedule.

There are problems with each.

Keeping everything as scheduled, we’ll be dealing with heat at the beginning of the year, possible hurricanes (knock on wood) in the middle and then another anticipated wave of Covid-19 corresponding with Flu season one the back end.

That’s a lot of uncertainty.

Several coaches have told me they aren’t as interested in gearing up to play what amounts to a bunch of exhibition games if they have major delays or an outright cancellation.

The seven-on-seven idea sounds good in theory, unless your kid plays in the trenches. Also, does a seven-on-seven season bring in enough money to pay those bills?

I actually like this front-loaded region game idea a lot, and it may be the most feasible. Every team knocks out its region games by the end of September, and then, if needed, the playoffs could begin in October.

The hold-up? Schools lose out on making a whole bunch of monetary potential from lighter stands or fewer home games while still footing the bills from a full season (uniforms, insurance, support staff, etc.).

I’d have to believe some would elect to cancel the season.

Here’s the kicker. I purposefully left out a big gap in there. And I did it because this is how it was explained to me:

The transition from summer conditioning to actual games is a huge leap. Will school districts want to spend the type of money they’re talking about for summer conditioning when they don’t even know if the SCHSL will allow fall sports?

Those conversations are happening right now.

Here are a few others:

*Multiple parents have said that without a cure for Covid-19 they are not even sure they will allow their children to play sports this fall;

*One parent debating a transfer for his child said that he may risk a one-year sports suspension because he isn’t sure sports will even be played;

*Home-school “enrollment” is going to increase this fall, nationwide. Are those parents really going to allow their kids to play sports when they don’t allow them in schools?

Either way, it is clear the mindset is different now than when sports were initially postponed back in March.

Then, it was “when”.

Now it is about “if”.

More parents are coming to the conclusion that it is time to prepare their children for continued disappointment and figure out what’s next.

All of this is some serious Debbie Downer stuff. I get it. And as I said at the beginning, I’d love to say that I’m wrong about all this.