In month of July
Not long after the fireworks cool down from July 4 celebrations around the state, junior college student-athletes will begin to make their way back onto campus.
East Mississippi Community College had pretty much accepted the fact that there would be no student-athletes on the Scooba campus for the summer.
There had not been any athletic activity of any kind at EMCC since the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shut everything down in March.
After first considering to let football and men’s basketball Lions back on campus by today and start summer classes on Monday, the National Junior College Athletic Association came out recently and established that men’s basketball will report for fall workouts on July 6 and football will report on July 18.
EMCC Athletic Director Sharon Thompson, who also serves the school as head women’s basketball coach, doesn’t plan to bring her team together in the summer. She said the Lady Lions can get everything done in the fall prior to the season beginning.
“I’m just trying to play is safe here and trying to ride it out as much as I can,” Thompson said. “This is the first time since I’ve been here that I haven’t brought my girls in this summer. We’re going to wait and come in during the fall. We have plenty of time when school starts in the fall and will have two months to get our kids ready for the season.”
The Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges came out on Wednesday with the schedule for football season. The season will begin on September 10 and have an eight-game regular season with two playoff games. The State championship game will take place on November 14.
Thompson said that’s the plan “if nothing drastic happens and we have to go back and revisit it.”
After the national meeting, Thompson also learned the basketball season had also been pushed up.
“Usually, we couldn’t officially start practice until October 1, so instead of doing that, we can officially start practice on September 14,” Thompson said. “Usually we could have our first basketball game on November 1, but now this year, we can have our first basketball game on October 16.”