At Wednesday’s protest, CMS can’t give kids exactly what they want. Here’s what it can do.
A group of student-athletes from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools plans a protest Wednesday morning at the CMS Central Office Building. Their goal is simple:
If there is high school football and other sports statewide this fall, they want to be able to play.
CMS can’t guarantee them a whole lot Wednesday. N.C. High School Athletic Association spokesperson James Alverson told The Observer that school systems that choose a remote learning option, as CMS has done, can still decide to allow students to participate in athletics. But right now, the NCHSAA hasn’t laid out a plan for there to a be a season, and until Gov. Roy Cooper puts the state into Phase 3 of its reopening plan, there just is not a chance of high school sports coming back.
The N.C. Independent Schools laid out their plan Monday, for example, but it is based on the state moving to Phase 3 and doesn’t include a date to start football practice.
Right now, there are just so many unknowns. It’s why states like California and Virginia and New Mexico have punted, moving all or most of their fall sports, including football, to the spring.
So, Wednesday morning, CMS can’t really give the students want they want, but it can give them a little hope.
The NCHSAA allowed teams to start summer workouts statewide on June 15. The final decision to start was left up to individual school districts. A few began June 15, like schools in Iredell County. Some started later, like Union County on July 6.
But there are still some that haven’t started, Wake County and Mecklenburg among them.
And that’s what CMS can give the student-athletes Wednesday: Let them begin those summer workouts.
The NCHSAA has reported five cases of COVID-19 since the non-contact workouts begin. Four were traced and originated away from the school setting. The fifth is still being investigated.
Local coaches spent weeks working on specialized practice plans and spent hours in training sessions on how to proceed in a pandemic. They say the kids would be safer on campus with them than at home.
Drive around Mecklenburg County most mornings or afternoons and you can easily see top-flight high school athletes on fields with footballs and friends. There are no temperature checks, no social distancing, just guys trying to get better and get ready for a season they still hope to have.
Kids are going to work out no matter what, or a very high percentage of them will. We agree with the coaches. It’s better to allow them to do that in a more structured environment that would allow the fall sports athletes to get back together with their soccer or volleyball or football teammates. A few weeks back when Union County started, the players at Weddington High all talked about how cathartic it was to see all of their friends again, to work together again.
The same could be true Wednesday if CMS says, “You guys can start workouts Monday.”
The players whose families believe it’s too risky to come back, we understand. But the risks appear to be low; the rewards appear to be high.
“Just being on a team motivates a lot of these young kids,” said protest organizer Tahj El of Myers Park High. “It keeps them in the right mind-set, to do good, and it’s easier for us to become distracted when we’re not involved.”
NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, now coaching at a Texas high school, made a similar comment on social media Monday.
“I understand (you) delaying school (and) pushing games back a few weeks,” he wrote, “but to disallow the kids to continue to workout (and) practice with their team for six weeks is trouble. You think they’re gonna stay at home, inside, with no school or team responsibilities? Keep kids responsibly active.”
Deion is right. On Wednesday, CMS can be right, too.
Just give the kids a little hope.
Let them workout.
This story was originally published July 21, 2020 at 4:26 PM.
