[BillyMac]

Here's the latest idea being bounced around here in Connecticut.

Have school sports teams, coaching, practices, etc., just no interscholastic games, only intrasquad games (not intramurals (there will be tryouts, certified coaches, school uniforms, officials, etc.) and not to be called scrimmages (because these would have all the attributes of interscholastic games, scoreboards, uniforms, officials, fans, cheerleaders, band, etc., minus other school opponents).

Student athletes would get almost all the educational advantages of participating on a school team, teamwork, character building, physical exercise, etc., with the health advantages of being in a school "bubble" (contact tracing, etc.) and not having the health issues associated with crowded bus rides to physically interact with student athletes from another town or school.

Proponents say that this is better than having nothing.

From the Hartford Courant:

Dr. Sten Vermund, a pediatrician, epidemiologist and the dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told The Courant last week, “The whole concept of hygiene is kind of irrelevant on the sports field. At the end of the day, physical distancing is not possible.”

Dr. Ezekial Emanuel, part of the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group, said Thursday, “I think contact sports are not a good idea. You can’t have a bubble in high school (sports). You have transportation; you have a lot of things that are going to complicate having a football season. I think for one year, we’re probably going to have to take a miss on it.”

Push most everything off the athletic docket for calendar year 2020.

Or just allow athletic operations to proceed as they normally would — without games.

I know I just pulled the chain on a light bulb that many of you will want to break over my head, but hear me out.

Conversation supporting the need for the resumption of high school sports in the fall has centered largely on the well-being of student-athletes and all that is lost in the absence of organized athletics — structure, discipline, camaraderie, confidence and on and on with what’s obvious.

There it was again in the CIAC’s introduction to its plan, those sentiments buttressed by the contention that “in-person instruction, education-based interscholastic athletics, and other cocurricular activities … are critical to the cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and mental health of our students.”

No doubt. No question. No argument here. Sports, for many, are the backbone of an adolescent foundation and educational experience and, yes, thousands of kids have already been robbed of something irreplaceable.

So set sports off and running, to an extent. We need the programs, the coaches, the teammates, the teaching, the learning, the coming together, the self-discovery, the experience. We just don’t need the actual games right now.

Practice, gather, learn, teach, plan — and devote would-be game days to intrasquad scrimmages or even group community service initiatives voted on by team members. Make what you can of a situation still worth embracing. We want our students, first and foremost, to receive a diversified education and rewarding experience, and that can be accomplished without the few hours of actual competition, without the thrill of victory or sting of defeat, without finding out which teams fit into inevitably bizarre playoff scenarios that haven’t even yet been developed.