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1990 'Measles Game' in Michigan shows coronavirus can impact tournaments like NCAAs

Coronavirus news conference at ICHD Lansing State Journal

Paul Omness remembers parents peeking through windows, trying to watch their sons play a high school basketball game in an empty, silent gym because of a measles outbreak.

“Yeah,” Omness said in a phone call. “I played in the ‘Measles Game.’”

Omness was a junior at Wayland High School in 1990 when a measles outbreak forced a Class B district tournament game against Allegan to be played under strange, unforgettable conditions. Nobody was allowed inside the Wayland gym except the two teams, the refs, the scorekeepers and Wayland athletic director Jerry Omness, Paul’s dad.