"Please Mask Up": Cheerleaders Push Back Against Anti-Masker Parents At Football Game

As schools in Utah reopen, a group of cheerleaders called out their anti-masker parents at a football game. Many parents were planning a "No Mask Monday" protest and their kids — that's right, their children — were put in the position of asking them to do a simple thing to help them "get back to some kind of normalcy."

In a video shared by her dad Mike Cobb on Facebook, high school senior Dallee Cobb of Enterprise, Utah spoke in front of a crowd of parents and community members ready to watch a football game last week and asked them to do one simple thing: "Mask up." As she stood with her fellow athletes, cheerleaders and football players alike all wearing masks, the student said that her high school had been doing everything they could to ensure a great senior year for her class. "But they can't do it alone," she said.

"In order to do your part, we ask that you please mask up," Cobb continued. "We of all people should know that wearing a mask is not fun. Neither is wearing a seat belt. Or a life jacket. Or pads for football. But we do all these things so that we have a future."

News outlet KSL reported that a "No Mask Monday" protest was planned in Utah via social media. "Everyone commit to No Mask Monday! Do NOT send your kids to school with a mask," one post about the protest reportedly read, according to KSL. "They cannot suspend the whole student body!"

Some students in Washington County, Utah took part in the protest, defying the state's mandate for students from K-12 to wear masks at school, but administrators told PHL17 that only around six students out of 35,000 refused to wear their masks. Utah has seen a total of 50,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 400 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune.

Cobb and her fellow students made it clear that they would not take part in the anti-masker movement. "We ask that you put your mask on so that we can get our game on," she said to parents last Friday. "I personally hate wearing this stupid thing, but you can bet I am doing whatever I can to be able to be here with my teammates and doing the things that I love."

As she explained, all of the students "want to have senior year, we want to have homecoming, and prom, and graduation." And while she understood that they all know many people disagree with the mask mandate, "we ask that you keep in mind that when you're wearing your mask, you are supporting all of us athletes, and helping us get back to some kind of normalcy."

Cobb joined two other students, Dawson Thelin and Broc Gardner, at a COVID-19 news conference on Wednesday to really drive the point home that they want to feel safe when they head back to school. "Even though we are kids our voices matter," Cobb said at the news conference, as KUTV2 reported. "I hate wearing a mask but I'm going to do it. We're fortunate to even be back in school. Opinions of adults is a big part of that problem."

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