Debby downer: Fall sports’ season preparations on hold due to storm

Football coaches will tell you that every day of practice during the lead up to a season is critical, as a team installs its schemes and learns the playbook.

Missing several consecutive days of practice — as has been the case this week due to the impact of Tropical Storm Debby on the greater Robeson County area — can slow a team’s progress that much more.

But, local coaches said, after having dealt with the effects of both tropical weather and the COVID-19 pandemic in the past, the overall feeling this week is one that they’ll make it all work, whatever circumstances are thrown their way.

“It was like a gut punch, but then we had a coaches meeting and it was like ‘we’ve been here,’” St. Pauls football coach Mike Setzer said. “At St. Pauls, we feel like we’re going to be competing in the state, so there’s people we could compete against that most likely they’re practicing. But we’ve been here, through the storms before and through COVID, it’s kind of like we understand how to be flexible. So it’s not running around with our hair on fire.”

Public Schools of Robeson County canceled all athletic events late Monday afternoon, though every high school football team in the county had either already practiced that day or was on the practice field at the time of the cancellation and completed their session. But from Tuesday onward, no team has been able to practice while waiting for the storm to run its course, then waiting for flood waters in some areas to subside.

“Like anybody else in this situation, it pushes (us) back,” Lumberton football coach Taurius Baker said. “I believe everybody’s dealing with the same issue about the amount of practice we can have before scrimmaging. Anytime you miss practice time, it’s always a setback at this time of year; your installs, your reps and everything that you’re trying to get in.”

PSRC will allow athletic activities and driver’s education to resume on Monday, district athletic director Glenn Patterson Sr. told The Robesonian.

“The kids’ safety is first,” Patterson said. “We’ve got some roads that’s out, and we’ve got some kids that live in rural areas, so we want to make sure those kids are safe, so we’re going to resume Monday, back to normal activities.”

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association requires eight days of practice for football teams to participate in a preseason scrimmage. Each Robeson County program completed five practice days before the storm, so they’ll each need three practice days before they are able to play in preseason jamborees.

Lumberton’s jamboree, which was scheduled for Friday evening and also includes Fairmont and Purnell Swett, was postponed earlier this week. The event has not been rescheduled as of Friday, but Lumberton still hopes to host some kind of scrimmage event next week, even if it is of smaller scope and size than what was originally planned.

Red Springs’ jamboree was scheduled for Tuesday, but will be pushed back to Thursday so that teams can satisfy their practice requirement to play. The format will also change, with some schools unable to play on the new date; Red Springs, Purnell Swett, East Columbus and West Columbus will now play a two scrimmages each that evening. Red Springs will face East Columbus at 6 p.m., Purnell Swett will meet West Columbus at 6:50, the Rams will remain on the field to face East Columbus at 7:40 and Red Springs will cap off the night against West Columbus at 8:30.

Other sports affected include volleyball and boys soccer. Both sports can begin playing regular season games on Monday, and while there is no restriction on the number of practice days required to play those sports, some local teams have opted to delay their opening contests.

“It just puts us behind,” Purnell Swett volleyball coach Corey Deese said. “We practiced Monday and we haven’t been able to practice since, and games are supposed to open up on Monday. It’s kind of stressful; I’m ready to get back into it. Not being able to see your players when the tropical storm comes through, you want to make sure everybody’s safe but you also just want to get back in the gym.”

Purnell Swett was scheduled to travel to Pinecrest on Monday, but that game has been canceled. The Rams, though, will still play Tuesday at Union Pines and Wednesday at Fairmont.

The Robeson County Jamboree for volleyball that was scheduled for Saturday is canceled.

Lumberton boys soccer was scheduled to travel to Laney on Tuesday, but has pushed that game back to next Friday. The Pirates will now open Thursday at West Bladen. The Pirates were scheduled to play two scrimmages this week, but those have been canceled.

“There’s never a good time, but the timing was awful here,” Lumberton soccer coach Kenny Simmons said. “We had three days of tryouts, and we were scheduled to come back out and practice for the first time Monday as a team after I had finalized the roster, and we didn’t get to practice that evening. When we get back on the field Monday it’ll be 10 days in between practices. The good thing is, everybody that we play is probably in the same boat, dealing with the same thing.”

Simmons said that in 34 years of coaching, including the last 31 at Lumberton, he’s never missed significant practice time due to inclement weather in August, with adverse tropical weather typically hitting the area in September or October, including Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018.

“We’re always concerned about the safety of everybody in the county, and trying to stay in touch with the players and make sure everybody was safe, but everybody’s biting at the bit to get back on the field,” Simmons said.

Football teams will still have two weeks to prepare for season openers on Aug. 23, but the loss of nearly a week of practice will require a condensed preseason schedule when practice resumes.

“It’ll cause us to placate some things,” Setzer said. “We’ll go back and look at where we left off, we’ll review back where we were at, and how good the guys are looking depends on how fast we’ll go back to the next step. If that means us going back to day one, we’ll go back to day one. It’s not the hair on fire anymore, it’s just deal with it, adjust, keep going.”

At Lumberton, which enters its first season under a new head coach in Baker, those installs are that much more pivotal. But Baker says that he doesn’t feel like his team is any further behind than other programs, in part because of the work of his coaching staff as the team has held virtual meetings this week to get some “mental reps” and “nobody sat at home doing nothing.”

“I really am blessed with a great coaching staff,” Baker said. “They’ve done an excellent job of installs this year, where the things that we’ve put in is not that foreign and is easy to learn, and we’ve been doing it since June 10 so I think the kids have got a good grasp of it. But any coach will tell you, the more reps the better … but I still feel confident going into our first game.”

While the time off has left coaches changing their plans on how to prepare for the season, coaches also acknowledged that the situation is not likely to hurt any team worse than anyone else, as every school in the area is dealing with the same situation.

“You look over there at your opponent — not saying we’re worried about those guys, but most of the people we start off playing the first couple of games, they’re here, they’ve got the same problem,” Setzer said. “So I always tell kids all the time — sometimes we go onto the field and the field is muddy, bad conditions, but both teams are on that field, there’s no excuses.”