Youth football league moves schedule to spring

A lot of questions still surround coaches and players about whether some athletic teams will play sports.

A youth football league didn't leave anything up to chance.

Chance.

The southeastern conference and the mississippi association of community colleges still haven't made a decision regarding fall football.

The high schools are on a two week delay, but the door is still open to further delay or move athletics to the spring.

The president of the mississippi youth gridiron league left zero gray area when it came to the safety of players and parents in his football league.

.

(matt) are you going to miss football this fall?

(tylen) yes (matt) why (tylen) because it's my favorite sport (matt) so were you kind of disappointed when you found out you were not going to play this fall?

(junior) yes (ladaniel) it's messed up (matt) why?

(ladaniel) because i love football (track) ladaniel, junior and tylen all play for the starkville cowboys in the mississippi gridiron youth league.

A league consisting of 14 teams in the golden triangle area.

Ladaniel and junior are the defending champs of their age bracket.

Their super bowl defense will have to wait, even though they're disappointed, they understand why.

(junior) because the coronavirus, going around.

(track) league president, rodney johnson is an emergency response planner with the state department of health, he's been on the frontline of the virus and wasn't messing around when it came to the fall.

(rodney) we just wanted to air on the side of caution, the way that us and my board looked at it, like i said, if this league was the reason for just one person getting sick, we felt like that was one person too many.

(track) johnson said the decision amongst the 14 teams was unanimous.

Parents, while disappointed at the void the league has left in the fall for their kids, have been understanding of johnson's decision.

Parents like amy loggins, whos son played his first year of football last spring.

She's a registered nurse at oktibbeha county hospital (amy) we thought we were tapering off, early in the summer, and off, early in the summer, and we're just not seeing that and i just feel as school gets back in, we're obviously going to see more, so if we can just focus on maintaining the health of children and adults then we can look towards having a little more fun maybe later on.

(track) according to johnson, next spring, they're moving to a conference only schedule, just six games, and will push back the start of the fall season, but at the end of the day, these kids will still play football and that's a good thing because (ladaniel) because i like to hit people (tylen) i like tackling people (junior) because i love it johnson said with so much uncertainty still surrounding the coronavirus and its effects and with the amount of elderly that coach, ref, and watch the games, spring time was the only thing that made sense for his league.

The sec and macc are set to make decisions any day now about their football seasons.

When we know,