By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–Finally, some good news for Union City’s Nick Markle and every other high school football coach in Tennessee.
Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he would sign Executive Order No. 55 that will allow “close contact” sports to resume traditional preseason practices and put teams across the state back on schedule for a full season in 2020.
“Excited,” shouted Markle, who’ll now make his UCHS debut as head coach as originally scheduled Aug. 22 when the Tornadoes host Lake County. “It’s definitely been a roller-coaster ride these last several weeks, but this is the news we’ve been hoping for all along.”
Union City will have its first full-contact practice on Monday (Aug. 3) after finishing up state-mandated heat acclimation workouts on Friday. Adopted guidelines by the TSSAA last week that include temperature checks and COVID-19 screenings ‑‑ among other regulations ‑‑ will be in effect once practices begin.
The 2020 season had been in limbo until Tuesday after Lee signed an emergency order in June that he recently extended until Aug. 29 prohibiting football and girls’ soccer from doing anything other than offseason conditioning and weight lifting.
A contingency plan that was passed just last week seemingly had the prep season headed toward a later-than-scheduled start with seven or eight regular season games and a shortened postseason.
Oh, what a difference a few days can make.
“I’m just so happy for our kids, especially our seniors,” Markle continued. “They’ve worked so hard for this time and they’ve really been patient with a process that has been difficult and sometimes tough to understand.
“We’ll continue to practice a lot of the safety measures that we put in place back when we first started practice on May 4. I really feel like that time has put us in a good place and we should be right on target to be where we wanted to originally when it came time to put on pads.”
There will be no scrimmages or jamborees allowed prior to the Aug. 21 first week of play. Otherwise, there are no changes to the remainder of 2020 slate. The state championships are still scheduled for Dec. 3-5 in Cookeville.
“We appreciate being able to work with Governor Lee and his staff on this,” said Bernard Childress, executive director of the TSSAA, in a release. “I am pleased that we were able to develop some very specific guidelines for every sport that will allow our kids to get out on their fields and fully participate in football and girls’ soccer this fall.
“Children across the state are counting on us — school administrators and coaches — to proceed with practices and competitions safely while being very mindful of the requirements and modifications that we have put in place. Our return to play is a partnership, and it’s important for everyone to do their part.”
“This is good news for many kids and their families, but the reality is that the virus will continue to be with us and we have to be smart about taming the spread. Every adult and every participant in every sport must do their part and follow the guidelines set forth by TSSAA and the governor’s office to help mitigate these risks.”
UCHS Football Coach Nick Markle