Graham
LAURINBURG — Due to safety concerns, Scotland County Parks and Recreation is postponing its fall sports season for 30 days.
“I want to make it clear that we are not canceling our fall sports,” said Director Bryan Graham. “We have worked hard to plan our fall sports season. We’ve put the kids on their teams and were looking forward to starting the season, but safety is our No. 1 priority. So we decided to push the season back for 30 days.”
Graham explained that the main reason behind the postponement was due to COVID-19’s Delta variant, which has been affecting children.
“With school starting back and kids having entire classes quarantined or having to be quarantined themselves, we want to lessen their potential risk of exposure,” Graham said. “These kids have already missed so much school over the past year that we don’t want them to miss anymore, so because of how the numbers in our county look we want to make sure they’re staying as healthy as possible, which means delaying our season.”
Parents who have already signed their children up for the fall sports — which includes soccer, football and cheerleading — will get updates halfway through the 30 days to keep them up to date on what is going on and the plan. Also affected by the postponement is the adult kickball and softball teams.
“We are still planning on having our fall sport season,” Graham said. “It’s just being delayed but we are still planning on having it … we really are hoping that people understand that we are trying to keep these kids safe and we’re trying to limit their potential exposure to the variant especially while they’re all transitioning into a new school year.”
Anyone with questions or concerns is asked to contact Athletics Supervisor Edmund Locklear at 910-277-2585 or elocklear@scotlandcounty.org.
Reach Katelin Gandee at kgandee@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com.