 West Virginia High School football practice entered its second week Monday for programs across the state, with the exception of Chapmanville, Logan and Mann High Schools. We had a chance to talk with Mann coaches Harvey Arms and Mike Crosby, along with athletic director Billy Jack Dickerson about the current situation and frustrations they face during the pandemic. They tell us that they have a system in place to make it equitable for all that are involved. I'll have to see that in action. I'm sure with just like all these other management systems that they've come up with, there'll be flaws. I feel sorry for those folks. I really do at the SSAC because they were getting hammered today with questions concerning band, concerning dance teams, concerning cheer, concerning everything that revolves around fall sports. On August 14th, the state of West Virginia introduced a new color code system to determine what counties were safe to have athletics in. Logan County has been in the red since the beginning. This prevents them from having any games or practices. Well, we, of course, we knew that that was going to shut us down. And from that point on, we were pretty much unsure. A lot of people don't understand the metric. I'm not sure I understand it to tell you the truth. And we knew we were going to be down until further notice. And that's all the information we had and really all the information we still have. Before I left the house, we were on, I don't even know what number, Zoom meeting that we had had with Mr. Dolan of the SSAC. And they really don't have answers. There's no way to answer all of the questions that are going to come up. The meeting was centered around attendance to sporting events. And depending on this color code system, it's going to be a nightmare to figure out who gets to come. You know, we have a, in today's society, we have a lot of split families. You know, the child lives with one parent some of the time and other parents some of the time. You're trying to figure out who is the guardian at a particular point, who gets to come to the game. It was just a nightmare, assuming that we would come out of red and move to orange. Then the first actual contest that man high school could participate in would be on September the 16th. And we're going to have to reach out to schools like Mount View and West Side and say, look guys, we're sorry, but under this current color code system, we're not going to be able to fulfill our contract. And if possible, you need to find a substitute for our game. Head baseball coach Mike Crosby has witnessed firsthand the devastation the pandemic has taken on high school sports. I can't imagine somebody coming to me my senior year after putting all that work in. And that's one thing about our boys is as soon as football was over with with with coach arms, the ones that wasn't playing basketball, man, they were working hard on their own. And I mean, they were in there every day grinding and busting it and to look at him and and tell him to take up and play. Really, this was about a two to three year thing, because I had two to three years ago, I had started a bunch of freshmen and sophomores. And we were looking forward to this past year. And then not to be able to play it. And they were looking forward to it too. It was it was heartbreaking. Although the outlook is currently cloudy, coaches offered their advice for athletes to remain positive. We've just emphasized, be ready when the time comes. If if we get this opportunity, we have to get at it and get at it quickly. Don't hang your head. Try to find the positive in everything that the positive that we found in baseball for the underclassmen was, you know, a lot of those that take it for granted now know what it feels like to have it taken away. So if nothing else, it it helped to work ethic of a lot of the younger players. But don't hang your head. Have faith in the system. Hope that it works out. Trust in your coaches. Do what they tell you. Just, you know, stay off social media. Try not to be negative about this thing and just hope that we as a county with that new color coded system, we as a county will take the precautions, the guidelines that's been put down and hopefully get out of this thing as soon as possible and and coach arms and and the hillbillies and Logan and Chapman'sville can all resume their seasons and start practicing and at least get some games in this year. Currently, if man were to play football this season, they would open the season against Mingo Central on September 18th. For details on this and other stories, visit mountain dash top sports.com or visit our Facebook and Twitter pages with mountain top sports. I'm Cody Davis.