Steve Savarese

By Steve Savarese, Executive Director, Alabama High School Athletic Association

and Karissa Niehoff, Executive Director, National Federation of State High School Associations

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without sports?

Now we know. And it isn’t fun. No NCAA basketball tournament. No traditional Major League Baseball Opening Days. No professional basketball, college softball or baseball world series. No Little League or youth soccer. The Summer Olympics have been delayed for at least a year. And the list of community cancellations and postponements is nearly endless.

If you’re a high school sports fan, the disappointment runs even deeper, and it strikes much closer to home. The interruption of the normal school year has played havoc with the spring sports season here in Alabama. For hundreds of high school sports teams, months of preparation, intense training and expectations appear to have been done for naught. And within our state, the dream of scoring a decisive victory over an archrival or competing for a state championship has been surrendered.

It’s “wait ‘til next year” for freshmen, sophomores and juniors. But for most of the high school seniors who participate in a spring sport, this is more than a season cut short. For many, it is the end of an active sports career. The NCAA estimates that, depending on the sport, only about three percent of all high school athletes go on to play a sport in college.

The senior first baseman who picked up his first bat when he was five years old will never have the opportunity to swing at an 82 mile-an-hour fastball again. The champion runner who has diligently trained to shatter the high school state record may never compete in the 800 again. The young woman who was elected captain of her tennis team will never know how deep into the tournament her squad could have gone.

But here’s what will happen, and it’s significant. That same first baseman has learned that baseball is about far more than trying to hit a ball with a stick. It’s about a group of young men from vastly different backgrounds coming together as a team. The sprinter has discovered if a person has enough determination, barriers once thought impossible can be broken. And the captain of the tennis team will take the leadership skills she’s learned as a student-athlete and apply them to everything she does for the rest of her life.

For many, their seasons and athletic careers may be over, but the character those senior athletes have developed because they participated in education-based high school sports lives on. It will encourage, guide and positively influence communities here in Alabama for the next generation and beyond.

High school seniors, thank you for the contribution you have made to your team, your school and your community. And thank you for the shared sacrifice you are making right now. Humbly, we congratulate you on an outstanding high school career and a job well done.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” To those AHSAA student-athletes who graduate this spring, you may have you’re spring sport seasons cut short, but you have gained both intelligence and character because you participated in high school athletics. To the class of 2020, we wish you continued growth and much success.

Although we are all practicing social distancing and communicating virtually, please accept this big virtual hug to the graduating class from all of us at the NFHS and AHSAA.

God bless each of you!