My name is Jeremy Williams. I am an 11th grade cross country runner from Lapeer High School located in Southeastern Michigan. Currently, I have run the 11th fastest high school 5k time in the state of Michigan. This puts me as the 6th ranked Division 1 runner in Michigan. My pre-regional race that qualifies myself and my team for regionals and, subsequently, states is scheduled for this Saturday, October 24th. I am projected to qualify for regionals by almost two minutes. Needless to say, there is a lot riding on Saturday’s race.

Unfortunately, on Monday, October 19th, I learned from the Principal and Athletic Director at Lapeer High School that I came within close contact of a student who tested positive for COVID-19. This means that I am not allowed to participate in school or school sports for 14 days. This would allow me to return on October 30th. While I would be back for our regional meet, I cannot race at regionals if I first do not qualify at our pre-regional race on the 24th. This means that, at this point in time, my season has abruptly ended.

The close contact that I mentioned is a student that sits approximately 4.5 feet in front of me. All students at Lapeer High School wear masks, and last Friday was no exception. In this particular case, the student with a positive test did not even look in my general direction.

On Tuesday October 20th, I received a rapid antibody test that came back negative. Meaning that I currently do not have the virus, and I never did. On Wednesday morning, I took a PCR nasal swab test that should have results by Friday. I am expecting a negative, and if the test does return negative, it is almost certain that I do not have COVID-19. Unfortunately, despite this, the rules put in place force me to stay quarantined for 14 days.

Throughout this pandemic, my school has coordinated with the Lapeer County Health Department. My Coach, Athletic Director, and my Principal have worked tirelessly in coordination with our Superintendent to sort out this complex issue and allow me to run on Saturday. In my mind, this issue is entirely with the MHSAA (Michigan High School Athletic Association) and the Lapeer County Health Department

The MHSAA categorized cross country as a low risk sport: we can naturally social distance and have put numerous guidelines in place to allow for safe competition. My advocates have been in contact with the MHSAA in order to allow some sort of exception for Saturday’s pre-regional race. I have already run times of 15:55 and 15:42 on the exact course that our pre-regional race will be held. It should take about a 17:20 mark to qualify for regionals. It was even proposed that every single team in our district/region could sign off to allow me a bye to regionals, but the MHSAA will not allow any sort of exception. Their reasoning is that they have not allowed an exception for anybody else, and they will not change that. This sounds reasonable enough. However, just recently, the MHSAA voted to allow Ann Arbor Skyline’s and Father Gabriel Richard’s football teams into the state tournament. This is despite those two teams not playing the allotted amount of games needed due to COVID-19 cases. It does not seem to make sense to allow an exception for two entire football teams, and not one cross country runner. Especially after clarifying that no exceptions will be made. I hope the MHSAA does the right thing in this situation.

My other concern is with the Lapeer County Health Department. They have been very difficult to reach in this situation. Their rules for quarantining have been quite difficult to navigate to say the least. Some documents explain that students are only “suggested” to quarantine, and none of the documents provide an explicit answer on the subject. It makes very little sense that I have already had a negative test, yet I still must quarantine. I need to reiterate that the student sat 4.5 feet in front of me and was wearing a mask. The student also only received one rapid test that was returned positive. To make matters worse, the student was not showing symptoms until this weekend, after I came into contact with them. If my second test comes back negative, I believe my quarantine should be lifted. It is absolutely absurd that a student who has tested negative for COVID-19 multiple times will not be allowed to run at an outdoor event. I will even run with a mask on if I must. I can only hope that they can be contacted and reasoned with.

Now that all of the facts are out of the way, I wish to say a little about my running career. As I already said, this is my junior season. The junior season is usually said to be the most important season in the recruiting process. This has already been sort of a breakout season. I have run 15:32 for the 5k, and I have ran under 16:00 in my last four meets. I have won all but one of our races where I placed second by 1.1 seconds. To compare to my sophomore year, I never broke the 16:00 barrier in 2019. In cross country, due to the fact of every course being different, times are often not taken into large consideration when assessing a runner. The most important results rely on placing at large meets, especially the state meet. This year’s state meet was supposed to be a huge opportunity for me. I was looking forward to separating myself and earning a scholarship; now I may not even get the chance. This is incredibly important for me. After learning that track was cancelled in the spring, I put my head down and trained all spring and all summer. I have run at least 45 miles every single week since early April when I suffered an injury. I also left my close family for the entire month of July in order to train in Colorado at elevation while living with my Aunt and Uncle. The state meet has been my biggest goal, and it seemed to be the one event that had not been cancelled. Unfortunately, given my current circumstances the state meet is essentially cancelled.

Not only has this scenario derailed my season, but it may also derail our team’s season. In the pre-regional race, four of the nine teams qualify for regionals. Lapeer is currently ranked fourth in our district, and on the fringe of missing out. This would end my entire team’s season. Without me scoring at the top of our race, my team will almost surely miss out. In fact, if my team was capable of qualifying without me then there would be little issue. Unfortunately my presence is needed for this to occur, so this is another dead end. It should be noted that no Lapeer cross country team has qualified for anything since 2008 when Lapeer East qualified for the state finals in division 2. This is our chance to change that as we have arguably our best team since the early 2000s. Our chances are squandered if I am unable to race.

Just to input a little bit more about myself, currently I have 4.25 GPA at Lapeer high school and I am taking 6 AP classes. Despite balancing this with running, I can assure you that I have never in my life been more stressed than I am right now. I keep assuming that I will get a call or text telling me that this is all over, but that has yet to come and my chances are dwindling.

I have worked with multiple people over the past few days, and I came into this scenario assuming there would be some way out of it. Unfortunately, every attempt has been a failure, and the only news we have received is bad news. I really hope that MHSAA, the Lapeer County Health Department, or even Lapeer Community Schools will provide some sort of solution and allow my season to continue. I feel like I have done nothing wrong and I am being punished for something that can very easily be solved. Thank you.