It will be but a distant footnote in the epic novel that is Hurricane Harvey, but high school football fans will not be able to watch the opening week slug fest between Katy and Austin Westlake originally scheduled for this Friday night.
That football game between the 2nd and 7th ranked high school teams in the state of Texas has been cancelled, with no plans to reschedule.
This would have been the inaugural game played in Katy’s new $73 million football stadium, a 12,000 seat facility that proudly surpassed upstate rival Allen for the most exorbitant high school football field in the county. So if you had tickets for Friday’s game, you’re out of luck. And that’s true for pretty much all football in the greater Houston area, as seemingly all regionals school districts have cancelled football this weekend. They’ve also cancelled school through Labor Day for now, which is good since a lot of high school campuses have become defacto shelters. Considering the historic damage, one can only imagine how long it might take individual schools to get back on anything resembling a normal schedule.
High schools aren’t the only sports programs that are taking the week off. The University of Houston Cougars cancelled its home opener against UTSA. They could have changed it to a road game in San Antonio, but decided it was better to simply sit this one out.
On the professional side, the Houston Astros will stay in Florida to play their previously home series against the Texas Rangers. They may or may not return home to play the Mets this weekend, although I’m sure the Mets have some thoughts on that. Astros ownership has already committed $4 million to recovery efforts. Houston’s NFL team the Texas never came home from last week’s preseason game in New Orleans and moved their final preseason match to Dallas, where they’ve been all week. Texans star JJ Watt has spearheaded a fundraising effort that’s already pulled in over $5 million. The Houston Dynamos cancelled last weekend’s home soccer match and don’t play again until September 9.
So that’s pretty much where we are. Most everything is shut down, except for a couple pro teams that are living in hotels on the road. And that goes without the obvious that I’m assuming every youth soccer and t-ball and you name it sports program is offline until it’s not, whenever that is. The question, therefore, isn’t what’s happening. For the most part, sports administrators seemed to make the best decisions in a worst-case scenario. Sports has been rightfully placed on the backburner while everyone figures out – and I apologize for being crass – just how bad the damage is to life and property. Once that sickening process takes its course, the question for sports administrators will be, now what?
There’s likely to be strong sentiments towards two perspectives. On the one hand, some will say that sports should be an afterthought, a luxury Houston can’t afford – fiscally or psychologically – until the important things are taken care of. Like food and housing and schools and medical care. You know, all the things most conservative Texas legislators say the government shouldn’t care about. And then, some time later, we can worry about things like high school football.
On the other hand, some will laud sports as the city’s rescue, giving things like football games outsized importance in the massive recovery at hand. Athletes will be encouraged to play for their towns and neighbors, and games will be turned into more than simply that. It’s not uncommon in moments of crisis, and to be fair, it’s often a welcomed distraction to life off the field.
As a sports fan, someone who grew up in Houston, and a former Houston high school athlete – track and cross country, not football – I’d hope the answer to the above question is neither. I’m hoping sports will be seen neither as distraction nor a savior, but instead an important part of normalcy in a town that often views athletics as far more than that. I’m hoping they start playing high school football next week, if possible, not to save the city, but simply because it’s what people in Texas do on Friday nights. Football, or sports even, isn’t life. But they’re part of it, a welcome diversion from what too often becomes the pilgrimage best articulated in one of my favorite songs of the 80’s from a group called the Godfathers – Birth, School, Work, and Death.
And if perhaps this storm reminds all of us – Texans included – that there are things bigger than football, then that’s okay too. I wouldn’t call it a silver lining, but a simple life lesson. Maybe, just maybe, we might even spend just a little less on high school stadiums going ahead, with all the other building projects at hand. Although I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Hopefully Katy and Westlake Austin will meet again this year, maybe in the state playoffs. As one high school coach articulately wrote on twitter, and I’m paraphrasing, no games this week – but you see in Dallas in December. Dallas is where Texas holds the state championships. And it feels far, far away.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
