Lorenzo Recupero – Everett Leader Herald

City overrides school committee, MIAA holds off winter sports

Plans to start tryouts, practice tabled until January due to rising Coronavirus numbers

By LORENZO RECUPERO

The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association and the Everett School Committee both formally agreed to allow winter sports at EHS to start but Everett’s governing bodies at City Hall put a hold on the planned start date of December 15.

The city is still in the red but Everett High School (EHS) had been given the green light to jump-start its Winter Sports season.

With authorization from the MIAA and a unanimous 8-0 vote from the Everett School Committee, Winter Sports at EHS will (prospectively) be allowed.

Instead, according to boy’s basketball coach Stanley Chamblain, the school committee and the city will reconvene after the holiday break to confirm the unanimous vote or deny it and cancel the Winter Sports season altogether.

Chamblain was a huge proponent of continuing play through the ongoing pandemic – with all the safeguards in place – as he believed a winter void of sports in Everett could have degenerative effects on the long-term health of Everett academics. His voice was heard loud and clear by the School Committee ahead of the unanimous vote.

Hoop dreams on hold at EHS

An array of shoe colors line the bench of Everett’s varsity girls basketball team during a game at Everett High School last season. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso)

Pandemic puts winter sports season on the bench, local towns virus rate too high

By LORENZO RECUPERO

The Monday after Thanksgiving is supposed to be the day high school basketball teams get to dig in.

In Everett, it’s marked the first official day of the winter sports season, when nets are set free and shots go flying.

This past Monday, though, Everett High School’s gymnasium remained shuttered to sports events, blocked by the ongoing pandemic still denying organized sports in the area.

Everett and other surrounding communities, including Chelsea and Revere, are still ‘Red Zone’ areas where COVID infection rates are too high to allow organized team sports within the public schools.

So, instead of athletes bouncing balls, the court at EHS remains scuff-less and is now being used as an E-Learning center to accommodate students who are unable to learn from home.

What would have been a day of excitement and try-outs turned into a day without basketball, a development something Head Coach Stanley Chamblain laments.

Patriot’s glory days were a sight to behold

Remarkable two decade Dynasty ends

By LORENZO RECUPERO

The Patriots lost on Sunday.

In the red zone, in a potential game-winning position with 37 seconds left on the game clock, quarterback Cam Newton fumbled the ball, helping cement yet another New England loss.

Which team (Bills) the Patriots lost to and the final score (27-24) means nothing in this story, though.

The latest loss, the Pats fourth straight, hasn’t been a thing since they dropped four in a row back in 2002.

Incidentally, via that factoid, we are pulled back in time enough to evoke memories of just one year before that, the 2001 season — the year the New England Patriots football dynasty began in earnest with a guy they call Tom Brady.

Gridiron Flashback

In honor of all the fall football stars just waiting for their chance to pound the turf at Veterans Memorial Stadium, during the 2020-2021 Everett High School fall sports season, we are showcasing snap shots of newspaper clips from the past, each including some of the biggest names and games in EHS football history.

1996

More EHS fall sports delayed

By LORENZO RECUPERO

The field hockey and soccer teams at Everett High School were scheduled to be the first in the city to jump into the modified Covid-19 era of HS Sports in Massachusetts this week but climbing virus infection rates in the community and surrounding areas have forced both seasons to be pushed back.

“We are encouraging everyone to wear mask and social distance so we can play,” said Melissa O’Donnell, fourth-year head coach of field hockey at EHS, who was scheduled to lead her team into their first competition of the year against St. Mary’s of Lynn on September 8 but the match was postponed because Everett as a community has been designated a “high-risk” area or in the “red category”.

A high-risk community, ac- cording to the state, means there’s more than 8 cases of Coronavirus infection per 100,000. Other communities in the area currently designated a red zone include Chelsea, Revere, Lynn, Salem and Saugus amongst others.