MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — After returning to the playoffs last season, the table was set for South Charleston to climb the Class AAA ladder in 2020. The Black Eagles welcome back a top-level Division I recruit in Zeiqui Lawton and a solid core of young skill players.
SCHS however will not take the field when nearly a hundred other teams across West Virginia will this weekend. Kanawha County was listed in the orange category in Saturday night’s release of the COVID state metrics, meaning the Black Eagles can practice but not play until Kanawha falls into the yellow or green category.
“At some point, we all have to understand that we are doing this with reasonable risk,” said South Charleston head coach Donnie Mays. “I get it. I understand. I have been doing this since June.
“We spent countless hours trying to make sure we were meticulous in our planning and making sure our kids were safe. We did it.”
Like many other Kanawha County teams, South Charleston has rescheduled their season opener vs. Capital to Monday, September 7 in the hopes that Kanawha will drop from the orange category in the new map release on Saturday.
“This is where true leadership steps up. I talked to the kids about it (Monday). We are preparing as if we have a game next Monday. If it turns orange again, we are going to prepare for the next one. How long do you do that? We have been somewhat held hostage, I guess you could say, since June.”
Kanawha, like Cabell and Monongalia Counties, have seen increases in new COVID cases in part due to an influx of students to colleges and universities.
“It is difficult because we are not taking into consideration the extra population that is coming into our counties. You can see it. It is happening and we were doing really well. We were listening to what the Governor said. Our kids have followed the protocols. We did everything we could. As soon as those schools opened up, guess what happened, the numbers increased. Those are people coming from outside the state in a lot of cases.”
Governor Jim Justice announced on Monday that teams in the affected counties (Kanawha, Fayette and Logan) had the option to test every player and coach. And if everyone came back negative for COVID, the teams could play immediately. All three counties rejected that idea.
“If I go out and tell kids that you have to do this or you can’t play, and then they go get a lawyer, now we are back to square one again and this goes even longer.
“When he (Gov. Justice) said, ‘You are going to be happy with my decision’, I can assure you that nobody was happy with that decision. Those parents were very irate and unhappy about what happened.”
South Charleston was able to take the field Friday afternoon in a scrimmage contest against Sissonville. Sophomore Mondrell Dean’s performance in the game netted him his first Division I scholarship offer.
“A college coach contacted me on Sunday and said, ‘You know what, we loved what we saw, we are going to give him an offer’. That was Mondrell Dean getting the University of Cincinnati offer. Imagine if that kid never gets the opportunity to even compete in that scrimmage.”
Mays remains hopeful that the current policies could be revisited. He mentioned the possibility of teams in orange counties being able to compete in games without any fans in attendance.
“We are trying to help kids. That’s what we are in the business of. And if that means helping a kid who doesn’t have a great family life be around us, so we can take three or four hours of his day and make it better and special, that is what we are going to do.
“But at the end of the day, every kid got into this because they are competitive. It is the nature of the beast. They want to play against other kids. All the kids want to talk about is, can we play? Their focus is being able to do what they came to do and that is compete. And I just don’t know how long you can dangle that before we start losing the kids back to other things.”