With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing, schools that are offering sports this fall are restricting who can be in attendance.
For football games at Whitefish Bay, players are able to bring no more than two people each. They will be allowed in the stands of Lubar Stadium, but physical distancing is required.
For those left out of the stands, there were some who were willing to stand along the fence to watch the action from a farther distance.
For Joyce Davis, her viewing spot is the same as it has been in recent years, her front yard right across Kimbark Place.
“We just have our usual chairs out,” says Davis. “We have our heater up. There is a trash and a big thing for beer.”
Davis says she has watched the team, and all sports from Whitefish Bay High School, practice over time and has enjoyed the chance to get to recognize the students and their parents. “It’s fun. It’s convenient. It’s community. It’s the little village; it’s the fun of being part of the village.”
The issue of whether sports should be played this fall due to the pandemic has been a dividing issue for some communities. For Davis, she has paid attention to what has happened at Whitefish Bay and other districts in the Milwaukee area. She is all right with sports being played, as long as the right precautions are taken.
“These children have been denied since last March,” says Davis. “I feel as long as their conscious of the commitment to be honest about symptoms and doing temperature checks, I’m happy to see them out there. It wouldn’t even cross me to deny them that, unless it proved that it just wasn’t safe.
“I have my faith in the athletic directors and the coaches, and the parents. No parent wants their child to be exposed or come down with something. So I think a combination, and I feel that it is safe.”
Davis says she and her husband will keep their viewing parties across the stadium to a minimum this year. “This year we’ll stay simple and small,” says Davis. “We won’t have the big cookouts, and we won’t have the invitations. It will be close friends who are walking by who know we are here. I just don’t want to create controversy within a village that I respect people’s opinions. They respect mine. It will be a soft celebration of football nights.”
