Charlotte-Mecklenburg AD opens up about why CMS is delaying high school sports practices
With several other surrounding school districts having allowed offseason workouts, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have delayed student-athletes’ return to campus. Monday night, on The Observer’s high school sports show, “Talking Preps,” district athletic director Sue Doran explained why.
The N.C. High School Athletic Association allowed student-athletes to return for workouts June 15, about three months after it shut down high school sports, including canceling its state basketball championships, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The NCHSAA said each district could determine its own return date. CMS initially said it would allow students to return July 6, instead of June 15, and later postponed the return indefinitely.
Last week, the district announced that cross-country and volleyball teams can begin workouts Sept. 14. The district has not announced when other fall sports, including football, can return to practice.
Doran’s answers are lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Cabarrus County released its return-to-athletics plan last week and included return dates for all sports. CMS only announced two. Was there consideration of releasing a complete plan?
Sue Doran: “We did, and when we return our high school student-athletes to our campuses, we’re looking at over 9,000 ninth-through-12th graders. That is a lot. So we gave a lot of thought to the process, and there’s no question, the way to bring them back would be to stagger them versus letting them all just come back in the same day, two days in the same week.
“We want to make sure we’re providing the opportunity to have the safest return possible. So we looked at the first two teams the state was bringing back, cross-country and volleyball, and we decided to bring those two back. And we’re going to spend some time with them, making sure our schools are implementing the processes, and then as the district we have time to evaluate those processes. And once we determine we’re in great shape with that, then we’ll then we’ll start returning our other teams based on the order that the high school association is looking to bring them back.”
Is CMS going to allow athletics in remote learning? Will schools be able to play in real games?
SD: “We don’t know that yet, because there’s a lot that could happen between (now) and Nov. 4 (when NCHSAA practices begin for volleyball and cross-country). We’re still looking at the metrics. We’re still trying to determine what’s best for our district for our student-athletes and our staff. So we don’t have a definitive answer for that.”
When practices begin Nov. 4, will CMS schools be allowed to have full practice?
SD: “We’ll look at what the metrics are saying at that point, and make that decision at that time. This hit us all in mid-March, and everything shut down instantly. And so now everything is starting to come back, and even if you just look at trying to get students in schools, be it K-through-12 or even at the collegiate level, there’s a lot of decisions being made and then one or two weeks later, those decisions are being changed. So to try and say (today) that we’re going to definitively do something on Nov. 4, we’re not ready to definitively declare anything at this point. We certainly want to, we would like to, but it’s just too fluid to say we’re going to do anything definitively at this point. We’re just taking it step by step right now.”
How tough are these decisions, knowing that whatever you decide, you will upset a large percentage of your students, parents and coaches?
SD: “It doesn’t really matter what decision that you make, there are going to be people that are really happy about it and there’s going be people that are really upset about it. So you can’t try to juggle, trying to keep a certain amount of people happy versus unhappy. You’ve just got to make the decision that you think is right for your district, for your student-athletes and for our community as a whole. So everything that drives what we’re thinking has to do with what is best for our student athletes and staff, knowing that the decisions that we make are not going to make everybody happy.”
Will coaches supplement checks be affected due to revenue lost during the pandemic?
SD: “Our spring season was cut drastically short and we paid our high school coaches their full stipend. So my thought is that we would carry that through this entire school year. I think all our coaches are working hard off the Zoom, from the social (and) emotional standpoint and from putting systems in. So it’s not like they’re sitting around doing nothing. They’re engaging their student-athletes, and they’re just not on the courts or the fields or in the pools with them right now. I’m fairly confident that (reduced stipend pay is not) going to be an issue.”
Student-athletes are having mental health issues being away from sports and school. How much has that affected your thinking as you make plans for athletics locally?
SD: “I talk with our administration every chance I get about how important school-based athletics (are). They drive a lot of the culture. They drive a lot of the personality and the enthusiasm on a school’s campus. But to try to weigh it in comparison to the physical health of a student or a coach, I don’t know that you weigh that. And at this point, the metrics in Mecklenburg County are so high compared to any other district in our state.
“There’s a social-emotional piece that’s painful from not being around your teammates. But I also think there could be a social-emotional piece if we had brought them back and we had something happen that was, I don’t even want to say tragic, but if we had student-athletes get sick, coaches get sick. Early on when I talked to ADs, they didn’t want to start and then have to stop because so many got sick and we had to pull everybody off the field and then start again. That would be tough, too. But yes, we have thought about it. We do understand it. But it did not outweigh the health and safety overall of our 9,000 student-athletes and more than 800 coaches.”
There will likely be fewer fans than normal at games this year. Will schools be able to live stream games to try to make up revenue lost, or are there other plans in the work?
SD: “We are trying to get to the final piece of the contract where we can get live streaming cameras into our football stadiums and our basketball gymnasiums. I think the other thing that we understand is, as a district, we’re going to have to come alongside and potentially support our schools in ways that we’ve not had to support them financially in the past because of the lost ticket revenue, and then from a booster standpoint, just the lost concession-stand revenue from from home games. We have given significant thought that we are going to have to come alongside and financially support our schools in ways that we’ve not had to in the past. No question about that.”
Is CMS at a competitive disadvantage by not practicing right now versus other districts that are, particularly in football?
SD: “I don’t think so, because football is not even going to start officially until February. For every single coach of every single sport in the district, I understand why they’re frustrated at not being out on the field with their student-athletes. We love what we do as coaches. That floats our boat. That keeps us breathing, and I totally get that. The thing I would ask them to do is understand we’re making a decision from a higher altitude, maybe, than they would when they’re standing on the campus looking at what they think they can do on their campus. We’re having to look at 9,000 students. We’re having to look at the metrics for our entire county. And I know that there are other counties that don’t have the metrics that Mecklenburg County, that don’t have the number of student-athletes that Mecklenburg County has.
“Based on the circumstances as a whole and what’s best for the team, and in this regard CMS is the team, it’s better that we have not started. I understand why they’re upset. I understand why they wouldn’t like it. But I do think it’s been the right decision. I do think it has been the right thing to do. And I don’t know that there’s going to be anybody in the district more excited to me on Sept. 14 when we start the return.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 4:15 PM.
