Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Portsmouth schools postpone the start of sports season
Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Portsmouth public schools postponed the start of the high school sports season Monday amid concerns over the recent surge of coronavirus cases.
“As of today, all activities related to varsity winter sports are postponed until further notice,” a letter to Virginia Beach City Public Schools families and staff said.
As of Monday morning, the COVID-19 health metrics for the Eastern Virginia Region were at
477.7 cases per day and 10.1 for percent positivity, the letter said. The number put Virginia Beach in the red zones, according to its Fall 2020 Plan, forcing the schools to go to all-virtual instruction and postponing sports.
“We need to be very clear that we have not canceled our winter sports season,” said David Rhodes, the coordinator of student activities at Virginia Beach City Public Schools. “We have only paused or suspended it. We will be monitoring the metrics very closely … with our hope that we can have a winter sports season.”
Rhodes also said the Beach District has altered its schedule, with games not starting until Jan. 4.
“All of these decisions are tremendously difficult,” Rhodes said. “... I know our athletes have been anticipating getting back together, practicing. They have been holding some
conditioning programs, so it’s not totally like they haven’t seen each other, but I’m sure they were looking forward to tryouts and not having to stay 10 feet apart from each other. The whole thing has been very difficult.”
Norfolk’s practices were delayed until Dec. 14.
“We pushed back our start for everybody,” said Steve Suttmiller, senior coordinator of athletics for Norfolk Public Schools. “That’s for all winter sports. We’re not going to play games until after the new year. It will hopefully give some time for things to quiet down a little bit. But we’re full go.”
Portsmouth, whose schools play in the Eastern District with Norfolk’s, also postponed the start of the season for a week.
“The situation is this: We made our call this morning to push practice back a week,” said Vincent Pugh, the athletic supervisor for Portsmouth Public Schools. “I’ll meet with principals (Tuesday) and we’ll decide on those specifics. Now my basketball teams can still do conditioning. We’re still in conditioning this week, but they won’t be able to have full-scale practices until (next) Monday.
“As of right now, our games in December are on,” he said.
Monday was the first day public high school basketball teams could practice, according to the Virginia High School League’s schedule. The practices are the first since the VHSL shut down the state basketball tournament March 12 and then postponed the spring sports season.
The first games of the season could occur as early as Dec. 21.
While Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Portsmouth postponed the start of the season, Chesapeake is moving forward.
“We are going ahead with practices today,” said Richie Babb, Chesapeake Public Schools’ supervisor of public relations. “There are no discussions about postponing the start of games.”
Girls and boys basketball practices began as scheduled in Newport News, Hampton, Suffolk, York County, Isle of Wight County, Gloucester and Poquoson. All of those schools have learned in recent days that none will start district play prior to the new year as originally planned.
Minus the three high schools in Williamsburg-James City County — which opted out of winter sports due to coronavirus concerns — the Bay Rivers District will begin its 12-game schedule Jan. 4-5. The Peninsula District has shortened its schedule from 14 to nine games, beginning Jan. 12.
“I think it’s great to get something going,” Poquoson athletic director Ken Bennett said of opening practices.