High School Football returns to North Carolina. Is everybody ready for it?
Providence Day coach Chad Grier was getting ready to start one of the first high school football practices in North Carolina, but he had to run back to his car.
He had forgotten his mask.
The coronavirus pandemic, first reported in the state in early March, has interrupted sports — including high school football — as state officials try to control the spread of the disease. North Carolina’s public schools have postponed football games until February and the state’s private schools can start Sept. 25.
Since June, state rules have allowed all public and private teams to hold non-contact workouts, but last week Providence Day and other private schools throughout the state returned to contact play with pads, including most in Mecklenburg County. In Wake County, North Raleigh Christian will begin its season Sept. 25 at Concord’s Cannon School. Ravenscroft has not yet begun practice, athletic director Ned Gonet said.
“We have a tentative schedule in place,” Gonet said, “but unless there’s movement from the Governor, it’s all tentative. (Beginning Monday), we’ll have tennis, golf and cross country back. The cross country matches are virtual. Other sports won’t start until the end of September. I mean, I’ve got schedules but I can opt out.”
In Charlotte, the largest private schools — Charlotte Christian, Charlotte Country Day, Charlotte Latin — plan to begin their seasons the week of Sept. 28. In what’s being called the “CISAA bubble,” the league’s teams will only play games against each other. No fans will be allowed in the stadiums for games.
Still, Grier said it’s great to be back on the field.
“It’s so cool,” Grier said after watching his team go through a series of plays.
“We’ve been out here since June 8 and we’ve proven we could do it safely and we’ve had good success,” Grier said. “It’s our first day putting on pads and you can tell we’ve got a lot of work to do with the blocking and tackling. It’s a little different than going against air.”
Should athletes play high school football amid coronavirus?
North Carolina is one of 17 states in the country to move public high school football games to early 2021. Meanwhile, 25 other states have already begun playing, according to MaxPreps, with what it said were “relatively small positive coronavirus tests reported.”
In Georgia, however, a 14-year-old freshman, with no prior health issues, tested positive for the coronavirus and was in the pediatric ICU at a Savannah hospital since late August, the boy’s mother told Grice Connect, a community news website. He was released this week, but diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart that the virus can sometimes cause. A high school player in Alaska tested positive for the coronavirus after playing in a game last month, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Players from both teams were asked to quarantine. In South Carolina, a beloved high school football coach died due to COVID this week, and a preseason jamboree was canceled after a player tested positive. And in North Carolina, Topsail High stopped workouts last month after an athlete tested positive, WECT reported.
In Alabama, longtime high school football coach Mark Rose told NPR he doesn’t think high schools should be playing. Unlike college or professional leagues, high schools can’t test for COVID-19, he says, and asymptomatic athletes can easily spread the virus to their teammates and coaches.
“I mean, it’s flat out child exploitation,” Rose said. “Of course kids want to play. But we are charged to protect them. We have no testing policy. Our testing policy is wait ‘til somebody gets real sick and then go tell the parents to test them.”
Despite that, at least eight more states plan to play this fall, including South Carolina, whose public schools start later this month.
In Colorado, the Denver Post reported that the Colorado High School Activities Association is looking to moving football back to the fall after initially moving it to the spring. The Denver Post reported that local coaches started a Twitter petition that now has more than 14,000 signatures.
Also, Michigan recently reversed course, and moved football back to the fall with games planned to start this week.
Football workouts coming in CMS, Wake County
In North Carolina, the state’s two largest school systems have not allowed football teams to begin workouts — three months after the NCHSAA said it was ok to do so.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ volleyball and cross country teams began skill workouts Monday. The district announced Thursday that high school football teams could begin skill workouts Oct. 12.
CMS athletic director Sue Doran said last week that no decision has been made as to whether the district will allow official practices or games while its students are in remote learning. CMS high school students, however, will not return until at least Dec. 14, for EOC testing. They would return for classroom instruction Jan. 5.
Seven NCHSAA sports begin before Dec. 14. Boys and girls cross country and volleyball practice starts Nov. 4, with games beginning Nov. 14. Boys and girls swim practices begins Nov. 23 with first meets no earlier than Dec. 7. Boys and girls basketball practices starts Dec. 7 with first games on Jan. 4.
Wake County schools administrators announced on Tuesday a plan for a “soft rollout and cautious return to play for student athletes,” The News & Observer reported.
“It is essential to the physical, emotional and mental well being of students to return to physical activity in as safe a manner as possible, which is the basis of our plan,” Wake County Schools’ athletic director Deran Coe told the school board.
Under Wake’s latest plan, volleyball and cross country will start workouts twice per week on Oct. 1. Football could return, two days a week, on Nov. 30, a date that’s “tentative dependent on evaluation of initial roll out.”
In Charlotte, Olympic High football coach Brandon Thompson said it’s hard watching local private schools play and seeing high school football, in other states, on national TV. But he said safety is the most important thing.
As of Tuesday, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services had reported 186,887 cases and 3,111 deaths in the state since the pandemic was first reported in North Carolina in early March.
“At the end of the day,” Thompson said, “you want the guys to be safe more than anything.”
Providence Day bustling with athletic practices
At Providence Day, Grier said there have been no reported coronavirus cases attributed to football since the team began workouts in June. Some Providence Day students have also returned to campus, though students have the choice to go to school or learn remotely.
“It’s been a tremendous success,” Grier said. “The school has done a great job from a thought leadership perspective on how to do school safely and get kids back on campus.”
Right now, Grier doesn’t know who his team will play or how many games it will have, but last week, Providence Day was bustling with practices. There was soccer on one field, field hockey on another. Junior varsity football players were on a third.
Senior quarterback Jake Helfrich said he had been looking forward to the start of practice for weeks.
Helfrich went to Providence Day from sixth to ninth grade and transferred to Charlotte Latin. He was the Hawks quarterback last year for two games, until he broke his right ankle and missed the rest of his junior season. He transferred back to Providence Day, to play for Grier.
Often this summer, Helfrich wondered if he might lose his senior season, too.
“We’ve been going all summer,” he said, “and we went through a slump, probably late July, early August, and we didn’t know about football this year. We were five or six days a week, every week, all summer and football was in jeopardy and we hit a low point.”
‘It feels like football’
Last month the N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association said fall sports, including football, could go on.
Helfrich said last week that it finally all seemed real.
“Feels like fall again,” he said. “It’s nice seeing everyone hit and falling around. I can’t wait. I missed last year. But we were optimistic. There wasn’t a second from June 8 to right this second, where coach Grier wasn’t optimistic about us playing.”
Grier said Helfrich has an Eastern Michigan offer and should get more once the season begins and he gets more game film to show coaches.
Grier caught himself and smiled.
“Doesn’t it feel good to talk about football,” he said. “It feels like football. I think this has kind of been everybody’s escape. We’re just glad to be back.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 5:33 AM.
