Smithville football team in quarantine; will have to wait to play football

Three players on Smithville's football team tested positive for the coronavirus.

Fans in monroe county will have to wait a while to see their favorite players.

Wtva's chelsea brown is live with how much money one school could lose during its wait on the sidelines.

Smithville school administrators canceled two games because of the coronavirus.

Three players on smithville's football team tested positive.

I spoke with the principal about how this will impact the rest of the season.

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Chad o'brian- attendance center principal "what we do over the next 2 week may determine if we play football at all this year."

Today is the first full day of quarantine for the smithville high school football team.

38 players are out for 2 weeks.

They will return to school on september 15th.

"football is the lifeblood of what we do economically around here and football is the sport that makes all other sports go."

Chad o'brain smithville attendance center principal says for a typical football game ticket sales make between 3000 and 3500 dollars.

The 25% occupancy rule would cut that profit to about 750 to 850 dollars.

"so if you lose a couple of those it adds up pretty quickly."

Boosters are also losing money from the concessions.

O'brian says concessions profits are usually more than ticket sales.

Concession money will typically go back into the band program.

"that's money that is taken out of the pocket of the kids or going back into the kids..

It's a universal affect no doubt."

O'brian is working right now to determine an exact number of fans (he???) will let back in the stands.

He is working on getting measurements of the stands.

According to his calculations, eighteen inches equals one person.

"it was pretty easy when they said 2 tickets per kid but now that we are on 25% we need to run some number and be a little more exact with what we are doing."

The band will be in the stands... that will take up some of the allowed 25% occupancy.

It's a community event, we have people that haven't had a child or grandchild that haven't played in years but are at every game."

Administrators still have two weeks to finalize their plans before their game on september 18th.

" people want certainty and right now there just isnt any."

O'brian says no other players or coaches are showing any symptoms. "as i was speaking to other administrator yesterday we are all in this together..

Nobody has every tried to run a school in the middle of a pandemic."

O'brain says he spoke with amory school district about their football plans and says amory is working on getting stands to put beside the field for the band, so they would not take up any of the 25% capacity.

Live in smithville, chelsea brown, wtva 9 news meanwhile, rivals west point high school and