Football stadiums remain empty on Fridays this fall with the football season postponed until spring. Coaches from the Columbia Basin discussed what it has been like not having those Friday nights to look forward to in what would be the second week of the regular season.

Ephrata High School head football coach Jay Mills said it started to hit him last weekend as he watched games being played on TV, following high school games going on in other states around the country.

Mills said he took advantage of his first Friday off to have a date night with his wife. The pair enjoyed pizza in the stands of an empty football stadium on the first free Friday night the pair have had since they met in 1997.

“I found myself sitting in the stands, visualizing stuff out on the fields from past games, kind of caught daydreaming a bit,” Mills said. “The thing I think that’s hitting me is I miss the routine of the week.”

While he didn’t necessarily mind missing out on some of the chaos of preseason and training camp this year, he said, now that game weeks have arrived, it’s difficult not having that weekly routine.

This Friday would have been the annual Battle of the Basin with Quincy High School coming to town. Mills said he’s disappointed his kids, especially the seniors, won’t get a chance to have that game this fall.

He said he enjoys the challenges that come each week as the team prepares for their next matchup. It’s difficult seeing the seniors not getting their last chance to play football in the fall, he said.

“Especially early in the season, it’s fun,” Mills said. “There’s the newness and the excitement of the season, the weather’s still good, the excitement of school starting, and the social aspect. There’s opportunity for the community to come together, whether it’s students, or parents, or community members.”

It is that social bond that provides a chance for people to escape from their everyday worries for a couple of hours and watch the game together, he said. Football provides something that brings people together, of all walks of life.

“That’s the beauty of high school football across the country,” Mills said. “Whether you’re Democrat or Republican, or whatever religion or ethnic group, it’s a common theme that we can all agree on in the sense that we’re here to watch. We may not like what we’re seeing or plays that are called.”

People may disagree on everything else, but they can still come in on Monday and discuss how Seahawks’ quarterback Russell Wilson played over the weekend, he said.

Royal High School head coach Wiley Allred has been coaching football in the fall for nearly 40 years. Allred said not having football this fall has definitely made a void that he does not appreciate, for himself and his players.

“I’m trying to make the most of it, and I think the kids are out, a lot of them are out throwing the ball,” Allred said. “Most of them are going every other day to school, so some sort of normalcy.”

He said it’s difficult watching high school seasons going in so many other states while being shut down in Washington. Allred said he is hoping one positive note of the season being pushed back is that it will help the chances of them being able to play in the spring.

For the community in Royal City, football is huge with the success the program has had in recent years. He said it’s one of the glue pieces that kind of help keep people together. The people he feels for the most remains the athletes, in all sports, not just football, Allred said.

“Football’s big for our community, but so are all the other athletic events, band, everything the kids work hard at doing,” Allred said. “You watch a generation get held back for something that really no one knows a lot about right now.”

The younger players in the program are the ones who will be catching up the most, he said. A lot of time in the preseason and training camp is spent teaching the Royal system and terminology to new players in the program.

He said they haven’t had a way to get together with the players yet, and a lot of emphasis will need to be placed on time-management to maximize what they can accomplish when the team gets the green light to get going.

“A lot of these younger kids are the ones missing out that will have to catch up, so we’ll have to utilize our time well,” Allred said. “And I think the kids will be pretty charged up to get going again.”