Around the country, high schools push ahead with planning for football

Instead of focusing only on how to return to sports, high schools should at least consider not playing at all, said Kenneth Shropshire, professor and chief executive of the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State.

“I’m really on the extreme of make things as safe as possible ... Just wait. It's not that important. Even in Texas," Shropshire said. “Could we forgo a year of high school football? Does the world come to an end?”

But the drumbeat to return to pre-pandemic “normal” is strong, from small farming communities that play six-man football to suburban and and city schools that draw tens of thousands of fans for games.