If it’s safe to play, get it out of the way

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Superintendents from Orange County’s school districts are gathering Thursday morning by conference call to talk about the Southern California wildfires and what they’re going to do with weekend football games.

While many options will be discussed, including each school district making an autonomous decision right up to game time -- and that’s my personal favorite -- the worst thing that could happen would be for districts to postpone games simply because it’s the respectful thing to do. It’s not.

If it’s safe and air quality is not an issue, every game that can be played should be played. If postponed games can be made up Friday, Saturday, Monday or Tuesday, do it. Do what you must to get all the games in. If it means adjusting the schedule over the next few weeks, get it done.

Could some teams be impacted negatively? Orange Lutheran and Santa Margarita might not play until Saturday or Monday, which would eat into practice time for Trinity League games later in the week against opponents that may be better prepared. It’s tough, to be sure. That’s the way it goes. Every year brings bad breaks.

Teams in the Mountain View League showed their resilience a few years ago by playing something like three games in 12 days after local wildfires.

School districts have done a great job this week by taking a wait-and-see attitude and not reacting in a knee-jerk manner. I would hate for a collective group of administrators to blow off common sense for the sake of appearances.

With all this fire talk, take a minute to enjoy at least one good thing ‘Fire’ brings us: Music by The Boss via a YouTube video.

- Martin Henderson

-- Image from www.technomancer-press.com