Playing a sport during COVID can be a struggle. But what about playing with COVID? Jackson Froh and Caleb Kerins, two varsity football players, tackled playing during the pandemic this past pre-season. 

Froh and Kerins came in contact with the Coronavirus in January 2021, during 5-day-a-week workouts to prepare for the season. Although the consequences weren’t as serious during the pre-season as they would have been during the regular season, the football players still faced setbacks.

“The whole team had to quarantine for 10 days,” Kerins said. “We felt so bad.”

The team took precautions to ensure as few teammates contracted COVID as possible and continued to take these precautions throughout the regular season as well.

“We had to make sure everyone had masks in the building and sanitized different things such as footballs,” Froh said. 

Taking these precautions guaranteed no other Wakefield football players would contract COVID in the future. 

Although Froh and Kerins experienced several symptoms of COVID while they were quarantining, they were able to jump back into workouts with the team quickly.

“I was pretty fatigued but overall felt good to be out of quarantine,” Froh said.

Kerins also agrees that it felt good to be back out on the field.

“It made me exhausted for a while but eventually got back to normal,” Kerins said. 

Wakefield’s football team attempted to make this COVID-filled season as normal, but also as safe as possible. 

“It was definitely different and was a lot of adjusting,” Kerins said. “It [COVID] always made it [football] feel nowhere near the same as usual.”

Still following the safety measures, the football team played through a COVID-free season finishing with a four-seven record. 

Their record earned the team a spot in regionals where they went up against No. four New Bern High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. Their season ended as they fell short one touchdown with a final score of 49-55.

Despite some of the players contracting this neverending disease, the team pushed through the obstacles directly caused by COVID and came out as a better team in the end. The football team ended their season after their first game in regionals, but they’re already working hard to go even further next season.