Wednesday afternoon, Myers Park High football coach Scott Chadwick said, felt like "a gut punch."
One day after North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said the state's public schools could reopen under a modified plan to allow in-person and remote learning, the N.C. High School Athletic Association announced it would delay the start of high school practice until at least Sept. 1.
NCHSAA rules state that football players must have at least eight practice days before playing, including three in full pads. Teams usually practice at least two weeks before playing, but the earliest date a team could play, after the eight days of practice, would be Sept. 10 or 11. But that's a very ambitious timetable. Sept. 18 would be a more likely Week 1 date, Chadwick said.
At Myers Park, for example, that would mean the Mustangs would lose three high-profile games: vs. Mallard Creek at the Matthews SportsPlex Aug. 19, against Texas power Trinity Christian, which features Deion Sanders' son at quarterback, on Aug. 29 plus a game against Rock Hill's South Pointe High School at Bank of America Stadium on Sept. 5.
That would've been the first time high school teams had played at the home of the Carolina Panthers.
Missing those games, Chadwick estimates, will cost his school more than $50,000. Longtime Hough High athletic director Masanori Toguchi said most Mecklenburg County schools have athletic budgets of more than $150,000, with heavy support from CMS, which covers officials, coaching stipends, security and ambulance at football games. Minus the CMS contribution, Toguchi said those school budgets would average between $50,000 and $100,000.
"Obviously," Chadwick said, "there was a lot of work and planning and meetings that went into putting that kind of schedule together, and it's certainly a gut punch to have this happen and to lose those opportunities for our kids. We felt like we had put together a schedule unlike any other that had probably been put together in N.C. high school football and to not have the opportunity (to play those games) is pretty tough."
