Sports leagues are beginning to start up after being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the way those leagues will be covered by the media will be much different.

An Associated Press article ran the other day describing the different non-traditional ways sports in the United States are being covered by the media.

While motorsports and individual sports like golf have been going for more than a month, team sports are just now starting to resume. Major League Soccer resumed this week with a tournament in Florida, while Major League Baseball starts back in two weeks. The NBA and NHL will be the next to restart, with the NBA scheduled to begin July 31 and the NHL on Aug. 1.

The NBA will be playing all its games at the Walt Disney World Resort sports complex in Orlando, Florida, while the NHL will be playing all of its games at a few locations in Canada.

The seasons won’t be just different for the players and coaches, but for the media as well. Locker room access will surely be either extremely limited or completely off limits, while many press conferences will be held via videoconference.

Television broadcasters will most likely not be at the stadium, but broadcasting the game from a studio. This has already been done at Fox Sports, as NASCAR broadcasters Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon have called all NASCAR races since the resumption of the season at the Fox Sports Studio in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Reading that article got me to thinking, “How will The News Courier report on sports once they resume this fall?”

There are a lot of unknowns with the novel coronavirus right now. Will the infection numbers continue to rise, or will they finally start to decline? How will that affect our local schools? There have already been two schools in Limestone County forced to suspend its workouts due to an athlete testing positive for the virus.

Will high school sports in Alabama even be able to take place this fall? And if so, what will they look like?

Of course, the biggest fall sport is football. Friday nights under the lights is almost like a religion to many people in this part of the country. It’s just as fun for me. Getting to walk the sidelines while taking pictures and talking to players and coaches is one of the highlights of my job.

However, I don’t know if that will be able to happen this fall. Will sideline access be restricted? Will I even be able to watch the game in the press box? Will I be able to interview coaches or players on the field after the game? We just don’t know these things right now.

But rest assured of this: I will do everything in my power to make sure I cover the high school sports in Limestone County as thoroughly and safely as possible.

If this means standing in a little area at the far corner of the field with a mask on, that’s what I will do. If postgame interviews can’t happen due to social distancing measures, then I’ll be burning up the phone lines that night talking to the coaches and players who made a difference in the game.

We have been without high school sports since mid-March, and everyone is ready for them to return. I know I sure am. It’s been a little boring around here with no sports to write about for the last four months.

I’m ready to start covering some local sports again. So, whatever I have to do to bring Athens and Limestone County the local sports coverage it desires, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m ready for some sports action, and I know everyone else is, too.

— Edwards can be reached at jeff@athensnews-courier.com.