By Russell Smythia
MTN Sports Reporter
February 14, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused numerous changes for high school athletics. Regardless, Coffee County High School was able to celebrate its "Senior Night" on Monday.
The school gave recognition to all of their senior cheerleaders, dance team members, and basketball players. These students and their parents stood together across the entire gym floor.
Since Coffee County waited until for "Senior Night", the cheerleaders and dance team got to be a part of the event, since the state started allowing them to be at the games starting in February.
“We were excited,” said cheer coach Christy Clouse. “We had 10 seniors who thought they had cheered their last game. I’m appreciative especially for these seniors.”
It was no easy thing for the school to be able to have everything like normal, the students had to think about not only themselves but everyone else around them.
“Just by following protocols,” said senior guard Tyler Taylor. “We had to make the conscious effort to just be around each other, teammates, instead of everyone else.”
The coaches had to be aware of who each player was in close contact with, like they were groups in a classroom.
“We were still able to practice in groups,” said Clouse. “We kept up who was in which groups, just in case. All this year we had been taking temperatures and maintaining social distancing when we could.”
Even with the teams keeping up with and taking care of all the guidelines, the players are still affected by contact tracing from people outside of the teams.
“It was definitely mind boggling,” said Taylor. “It had me in my own head for days, having to be away from the team during the season like that.”
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