By Taylor Boyd
Patrick County High School students now have the option to participate in high school athletics following a 3-2 vote at the special called meeting of the Patrick County School Board on Tuesday, Nov. 24.
The vote that paves the way for high school sports, training, and conditioning to begin with winter sports, was taken after impassioned pleas from several parents, coaches, and students.
Derrick Williams said a ‘no’ vote by the board “would preempt the governor, the VHSL (Virginia High School League) and the Virginia Board of Education (VDOE), and any decision they have made related to the topic.
“A vote no sends a message that the board is not in favor of returning to school. It also sends a message that you are voicing your displeasure in not returning to school 4-days” a week. Williams, who lives in the Smith River District, said if it’s the latter, then it would be like the board is “using our student athletes as pawns, and that’s not a good look and not a good feeling.”
He said a vote ‘yes’ supports “our student athletes, and a return to normalcy with the understanding that there are mitigating factors that we have to be considered. The VHSL and the Virginia Board of Education will determine those.”
Candice Fulcher said “young people are struggling with mental health including suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety, all related to COVID-19. Sports provide so much for these children who participate in them and have been shown to reduce anxiety and depression.”
Fulcher, who lives in the Smith River District, added that her daughter does better in school when she participates in sports.
“Her coaches keep her motivated in the classroom. These coaches are more to these kids than just coaches and taking sports away from kids, you are taking the coaches away from them,” she said.
Kristian Reynolds, a senior at Patrick County High School, said he thought it would be good for the board to hear from a student athlete about the effects of not being able to participate in sports.
For example, the inability to participate has affected his future. “I decided to join the U.S. Army due to the fact that I could not really rely on the school board to be able to let me prove myself to be able to get back to that college level since I wasn’t able to clarify” to universities “that we would have sports.”
Reynolds said that students truly need the ability to do sports, and the risk for students is minimal. “There have been about 500 deaths in the United States for people under 24 because of COVID-19.”
Stephen Jackson, a coach for the boy’s middle school soccer team said, “sports keep students moving, engaged in the community, out of trouble, and mentally healthy.” It’s not a coincidence that the question of sports has brought the conversation of sending kids to school 4 or 5-days a week to the surface, he added.
“Going back to school 4-days a week goes hand-in-hand with sports. Please give us the option to send the kids 4 to 5-days a week,” he said.
Adam Wright said the decision was more about what the students wanted to do rather than what the parents wanted to do.
“The VHSL has already said we can play sports. To get anything to come from Richmond that says that we can do it is amazing. They have to go through a lot of loopholes, a lot of data to say ‘yes, it’s okay to do this,’” Wright, who lives in the Mayo River District, said.
“I think the threat of no sports is more harmful to these kids than COVID-19 is,” Eric Bolt, a volunteer football coach for five years, said. He encouraged the board to take the impact of its decision into consideration, particularly how it would affect seniors.
“Don’t let it be the last time some of these kids will put on a football helmet, or pick up a volleyball, or dribble a basketball. They may not go to college, and they may not have the opportunity” to play sports after high school, he said.
Terry Harris, assistant principal and athletic director at Patrick County High School, said every school in the district is set to begin sports on Dec. 7, but athletic teams “may not get to play every game on the schedule” because of the region’s return-to-play protocols.
Harris said the school would also decrease the amount of people allowed into ball games in accordance with Gov. Ralph Northam’s mandate. As a result, only 25 spectators are allowed at games.
Harris said officials “are looking at not allowing any visitors or spectators at home games” besides parents of players.
The current plan “is to allow the JV parents into the building, hopefully two per kids, and at the conclusion of the JV game, remove those parents and sanitize the bleachers while the varsity teams are warming up. The varsity parents will have to wait in the parking lot until we signal them that they can enter the gym.”
“After reading some of the emails, my biggest fear would be the impact on the students, and possible college” opportunities, Ryan Lawson, of the Peters Creek District, said before he made the motion to allow the high school to begin sports.
“The way I look at it, if all the other districts around us are playing and these students don’t get the opportunity to, how are they going to compete? They have nothing to build on to try to compete for a type of scholarship or anything, and I would hate to see the impact it might have on their college” opportunities, Lawson said.
Walter Scott, vice chairman and of the Smith River District, reaffirmed his stance from a previous meeting and seconded the motion.
Greenlighting a return to sports is “a step in the right direction to getting our schools back to normal. We’ve got to do baby steps,” he said.
Shannon Harrell, of the Blue Ridge District, said she also supported the bid to allow students to participate in high school sports.
“We have the mitigation strategies in place to try to keep the students and the essential people as safe as possible and the spectators,” she said, adding school board members should “give people the choice and allow them to participate if they feel that it’s in their best interests safety wise and health wise.”
Brandon Simmons, chairman and of the Dan River District; and Amy Walker, of the Mayo River District, cast nay votes.
“I still feel that based on the numbers that we’re seeing in our region that it would be too much of a risk to go and play right now,” Walker said. “I hate that, and it breaks my heart because I know that kids want to go and play sports and build that comradery with their friends and their coaches and it’s a very difficult decision for me to say ‘yes go play’ when I know what the numbers of our active cases look like, not only in Patrick County, but in the surrounding counties in our region.
“One thing that I’ve been torn so much about is that sports are not the only extracurricular activity, and when I think about that I think about other kids who may be in the band, or taking vocational classes, and they don’t have the opportunity to come and do what they love to prepare for their careers everyday like our sports students would be able to play and practice,” she said.
Walker added that she has “to look at the overall picture of all of our students and take that into consideration and it’s hard for me to just allow one particular group and say ‘yes, it’s okay to do what you love’ and not allow other students the same as well.”
Harrell said the requirement for each game to be approved by the health department made her feel better about allowing students to start sports.
Health officials “look at the levels that we’re in, and they make that decision using their professional knowledge. It’s not someone at the school having to make that decisions it’s a health professional making that decision before we play each of” the other teams, Harrell said, adding the decision involves more than just student athletes. “It’s the forensic teams and the academic teams, so it’s more than just the actual sports on the court or the field.”
Simmons said the board sent a survey to parents and teachers to gauge opinions of offering virtual only instruction, remaining blended, or go to school 4-days a week if the Center for Disease Control (CDC) changed the guidelines.
“Looking at that right now, the community has around 100 people in quarantine and we haven’t even hit Thanksgiving or Christmas yet. I may be more on the idea of maybe waiting until after the holidays to see how things are to start sports,” he said.
Simmons said he can’t justify send a student to school five days a week with the current multiple restrictions. “How can I let them play contact sports five days a week? Because you’re going to be playing three games a week and have two days of practice, so that’s five days a week. Say in basketball that you’re having a contact sport, but at school the CDC says you have to count all these guidelines about being apart and masks, and all that,” he said.
“Like she (Walker) mentioned vocational. A lot of kids take vocational programs, and that’s what they’re going to do when they get out of high school. Just like some of these kids, they might go on and play sports. We can give them five days of sports, but we can’t give these kids in vocational programs five days,” Simmons said, adding that in 2019, more than 800 students were in vocational classes and about 300 in sports.
Simmons said the VHSL only approves high school sports. “What about the other six schools that want to play at the elementary level” in local recreation leagues? That has to be approved by the county, and speaking to Denise Stirewalt on the Board of Supervisors, she doesn’t think they’ll approve county recreational sports,” he said. “I just can’t bring myself to approve it when I think of everyone, it’s not just athletes that suffer. There’s a lot of other kids in this school system that need other things and they’re not getting it, and I just can’t agree with it.”
In contrast, Scott issued a challenge “to all the sports people to get something in the elementary school sports. That’s important as well.”
