start official summer practice until Sept. 7. The Tigers begin
their season on Sept. 25 with a home game against The Colony
and play their final regular season game at home against Ennis
on Dec. 4. Playoffs for the larger schools will begin the following
week and run into January.
Yes, everything is different about this football season.
Even the radio broadcasts. KAND and announcers Rusty
Hitt and Todd Wills, the voice of Tiger sports, will broadcast
the first three games of the year for Mildred’s Eagles and then
begin their annual weekly broadcasts for the Tigers on Sept.
25. Mildred fans who wish to stay at home will have a chance
to hear their Eagles on the radio.
Part of the new normal means stadiums will be allowed to
have only a 50 percent seating capacity with social distancing.
Families can sit together, but friends must sit apart. In Corsicana,
where the stadium has a new name — the Community
National Bank & Trust of Texas Stadium at Tiger Field —
tickets will be purchased online, and all spectators with have
their tickets scanned from a distance.
“It’s all about safety first,” said Corsicana head football coach
and Athletic Director Hal Wasson, who is in his second year at
CISD. “They will scan the tickets from eight-feet away. We are
doing everything we can to stay safe.
“That’s the challenge,” he said. “We have to do everything
we can.”
It’s a new way of life in every locker room, every weight
room, where athletes must practice social distancing and wear
masks, and at every door. No one can enter the CISD facility
without a temperature check and screening.
“We check everyone who enters our facility,” Wasson said.
But the real challenge is constantly checking the players.
“When you have been doing something all your life you do
things the same way,” Wasson said. “ But now you do everything
differently. You can never let your guard down. Things
like how you take a water break, making sure no one is throwing
a towel around in the locker room. You can’t let your guard
down on anything.
“Safety is always at the forefront,” Wasson said. “It’s a different
kind of safety. You can’t get comfortable. You just can’t.”
Everything is different in the locker room, and even road
games are a big challenge because you have to have social
distancing on the bus rides.
“The administration took care of that,” Wasson said. “Instead
of two busses we will be taking three busses this year.
“Our leadership with Dr. Diane Frost (CISD Superintendent)
and our administration is working night and day to do
everything they can to make sure we have a safe environment
and to secure our safety. People don’t understand how much is
involved making sure this is as safe as possible.”
It’s the same challenge at every school, on every football
field, where from the first day of voluntary summer workouts
coaches and players had new demands to stay safe.
“We followed all the safety protocols,” said Mildred coach
and AD Duke Dalton. “It was more demanding, but I felt like
we got more done.”
One thing no one talks about is the day to day burden. No
one wants to see anyone come down with the virus, and that
puts pressure on everyone. Major League baseball has had a
lot of problems with players becoming infected. The Miami
Marlins had 19 players and staff members become infected
and had to shut down for a week, and shortly after the St.
Louis Cardinals had players become infected and they had to
postpone games. At one point in the season most of the teams
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