With a vote on Thursday, the high school sports careers of thousands of Oklahoma seniors came crashing to a halt.

The OSSAA board of directors voted unanimously to cancel the 2020 spring sports season in the state. That vote also put an end to the state basketball tournaments for Classes 2A-3A-4A-5A-6A.

It came on the recommendation of OSSAA Executive Director David Jackson.

“We don’t think it would be the responsible thing to do,” Jackson said in making his recommendation, which is in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

That move made it official in putting an end to organized sports in Oklahoma this school year.

It also put an end to several athletic careers, most of them forever.

In the space that we normally reserve for team photos of various spring sports throughout the season, the Times & Free Press is instead going to feature some of those seniors who won’t get to compete in their final sport.

“The pandemic has affected us in so many ways and sports is just a small part of that,” said KT&FP Managing Editor Michael Swisher.

“We’d normally spend the entire spring highlighting area athletes in baseball, tennis, golf, soccer, track and softball. Since we can’t do that, we wanted to give some of our local seniors a place to express their emotions.

“Some of these seniors had chances to compete for state championships. Some were going to be role players on average teams, but all looked forward to competing, so we want to give them a chance to tell us their emotions during this time.

“We’d love to be able to feature every senior in the county, but it’s just not possible. We’ll have our senior edition later this spring to highlight the accomplishments of everyone.”

KT&FP will feature three seniors each week, beginning this week.