Puppet shows and St. Louis Area Boys High School rankings 12/03/2020

 

I feel very lucky.  

My youngest daughter sent us a story that our 2nd grade granddaughter had written for her teacher this week.  The assignment was for the student to write about their favorite summer memory.  After much hand wringing, she wrote about a puppet show that she and I conducted for Grama and her family at our Minnesota cabin this summer.  When we read her story, both Grama and I began to tear up.  Could life be any better for us during the pandemic crisis?  We feel very lucky that we have stayed safe and maintained our health when so many others have fallen ill or died from Covid-19.

I hope we continue to be lucky.  I hope and pray that the Missouri high school 2020-2021 basketball season, which began in full force this past week, will be able to continue.  If players and their families remain diligent to the pandemic guidelines, they might just get a season in.  One slip-up by one family flaunting the guidelines and their player might infect the entire team, require isolation/quarantine and end up with canceled games or an entire season.

For now, St. Louis County is holding off on more severe pandemic guidelines.  We thought we had it bad in April but the pandemic is exploding, with record illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths over the past few weeks.  The next few weeks will be critical.  Will there be another surge from Thanksgiving gatherings?  Will the numbers start to tail off because people are finally waking up about wearing masks and limiting gatherings?

I am hopeful.  Hopeful that "Anti-maskers" will finally see that their "right" to not wear a mask is actually a very selfish act that could kill other Americans.  Hopeful that new restrictions will start to show a dampening of the virus spread.  Hopeful that the basketball season can continue through all of this.  Hopeful that a vaccine will arrive soon enough to squelch this horrible virus and hopeful that people will actually get vaccinated when they can.

So life goes on.  We remain vigilant and act like like can go on living "normally", when the new normal feels so strange.  For our younger daughter, staying safe is important.  Puppet shows are important.  Basketball is not.  For our oldest daughter, with two sons playing high school ball, this season IS.

For many young players, basketball is life.  Basketball is their ticket to college and a better life.  Let's hope we can do both.... Stay safe and play.  We can watch the puppet shows and basketball on live streaming.

Enough of that.  Here's a look at the large and small schools in the St Louis Area.  I have included some schools that have put their basketball programs on hold until January and may not play at all.  I will include them in rankings until those districts totally cancel their season.  The ratings will be more robust and relevant as I get more games in the rating calculations.  I have not included Illinois teams in these rankings.  If the Illinois teams get to play, I will include them at that time.

 Stay safe, folks.  I remain hopeful we will survive these times.  We might even get to see some hoops.

Girls ratings are listed at:

https://gramps2021missourihoops.blogspot.com/2020/12/puppet-shows-and-st-louis-area-girls.html