Two of region’s private high schools to move forward with football this fall
Portsmouth Christian athletic director Larry Smith is cautiously optimistic as his school’s football team prepares for the 2020 season.
He knows all of the concern surrounding COVID-19, but he also has faith.
“We prayed about it and we’re going to put our best foot forward to do the best we can to make this happen for them,” he said.
The Patriots play in the Metro Conference, which unlike most of the rest of the state, will play fall sports in the fall.
“Our whole conference is offering volleyball and soccer (and cross country),” he said. “There’s only three football teams in our conference. Broadwater Academy has decided to go eight-man this year and, so, it’s us and Atlantic Shores. We both agreed to press onward.”
The problem, however, is finding opponents.
Portsmouth Christian was scheduled to host Fredericksburg Christian on Saturday, but the Eagles backed out unexpectedly.
“To call it a disturbing call would be an understatement,” said Smith about Fredericksburg Christian, which has already played one game this season and beat the Patriots 55-13 in 2018 on the way to a Division II state title. “We jumped through all of these hoops and finally got clarity that we were able to play. … Now they’re telling us different things.”
A phone call to Fredericksburg Academy athletic director Luke Sellers was not immediately returned as to why the Eagles backed out.
Smith was able to get Fork Union Military to fill the date, but then the school’s athletic director called him back saying they won’t be able to play because it wasn’t cleared by the president of the school.
After working the phones much of the day on Tuesday, Smith was able to secure a game with the South Wake Crusaders from Raleigh, North Carolina. The home game will be at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Portsmouth Christian — which features seniors Brunye “Bubba” Thomas and Taijon Yorkshire — has four teams on its schedule with Atlantic Shores, which it will play Oct. 17, Fi s hburne Milit a r y
sey Boyce said the TCIS athletic directors have been meeting weekly to “help each other out and hash things out.”
“Everybody is kind of doing their own thing right now as far as what their school will allow,” she said.
Catholic High athletes are doing strength and conditioning, but “we’ve been as careful as we can be,” Boyce said.
Isle of Wight Academy athletic director and football coach Dale Chapman said this is the first time in 28 years that he’s not preparing for a football game and it’s been a “transition.”
“It starts feeling like fall in the air and you feel like you’re missing something,” he said. “It has been disheartening for my seniors and my juniors. We’re hoping we can get something going in that February time frame.”
For now, Chapman has his athletes participating in lifting and conditioning under the state’s guidelines.
“So we’re still following all protocols and practices,” he said. “But it is strange not to be out there getting after it. It’s really sad.”
Dick Kemper, the executive director for the Virginia Independent School Athletic Association, said the VISAA doesn’t control what schools do, unlike the VHSL, but governs the championship events for the private schools.
“Wecanceled the fall events, but we left it up to the individual schools and the conferences to decide whether they wanted to play fall sports,” he said. “It was difficult because we didn’t want to deprive those people of an opportunity to play. But we just knew that we wouldn’t be able to have — with restrictions on with social distancing and face masks — them come to a big event like a cross country meet. So, we left it up to schools. If you want to play football in the fall, do it.”