This morning the South Carolina High School League held a Facebook Live meeting. I came in on the tail end of it where there was motion to vote regarding in person workouts. I don’t have exactly how it was worded…kind of seemed like it might have been a double negative. In any event, the vote was 13-1 in favor of continuing to allow in person workouts and to reject the decision by Greenville County Schools to eliminate in person workouts.
Greenville County Schools order is set to expire on July 20th. We’ll have to see if they decide to stick to their guns despite everyone else in the state wanted to continue workouts.
My understanding with the vote is that the South Carolina High School League is not going to make a decision to force schools to stop workouts but rather it will be left up to the local school districts in the state.
I believe they had also discussed the possibility of moving fall sports to spring…I guess they are hopeful that somehow things are going to be better with the virus next spring. I’m not sure where they are getting that idea from given that the hysteria over the virus has accelerated here since mid-March.
We still don’t know if our schools will be playing high school sports this fall. The South Carolina State High School League will hold a public meeting via Zoom tomorrow, July 15th at 8am eastern. It will be broadcast live from the SCHSL Facebook Page.
South Carolina has become a “hot spot” for coronavirus cases and the government officials are concerned that we are going to see an explosion in hospitalizations and deaths. Mind you at this point, there have been 691 recorded deaths from the coronavirus in South Carolina which has a population of 5.2 million people. Local officials in Greenville are jumping in to action as seen by the City of Greenville issuing a mask mandate for all grocery stores and pharmacies within the city limits. Now Greenville County School is suspending all sports practices and training through July 20th.
Greenville County Schools athletics is a massive operation. There are 16 high schools in the county. Summer workouts and training is a huge part of all sports programs here in the state of South Carolina. This news yesterday came as quite a shock and surprise to many in the sports community.
There is no guidance yet as to what might happen after July 20th. Most high school football programs are slated to begin official practices at the end of July. That doesn’t give them much time to adjust if they need to. The first games are supposed to kick off on August 20, 2020.
The South Carolina High School League had a meeting yesterday and a Zoom conference with the commissioner. They are very cautious about committing to any start to fall sports.