Cumberland County High School completed their hosting of the District 7AAA tournaments in February.
The tournaments initially were slated to have two games on each day for six days. Due to the snowstorm that took place Wednesday night into Thursday, postponements ended with each tournament play four games each within the span of four nights. Cumberland Athletic Director Justin Nivens said the process ended up being easier thanks to the help around him.
“We have to look at each member school that’s playing in it and we got to contact them and find out, cause some of the different districts will have a policy sometimes in their Board of Education where they’re not allowed to play on inclement weather days.” Nivens said. “When that happens, you can’t just say okay well, you forfeit and cancel stuff like that. We got to make sure we fit them in.”
Nivens said Cumberland County stands as one of the District 7AAA schools that does not possess an inclement weather policy. The district tournaments at Cumberland County ran from Friday, February 21st to Tuesday, February 25th.
“Even though it makes for a long day, I probably liked having the four games the way we did it.” Nivens said. “I’m not advocating that I want to work necessarily more Saturdays, but the original plan, all the districts, they come together and they decide this, so it’s not like one AD is just saying hey, this is how the tournament is going to go.”
Nivens said the district rotated administrators and admin on different nights so everyone would not have to work all four nights.
“I kind of liked that part and going forward, that’s probably what I would advocate for if we’re hosting again,” Nivens said. “If we can do four games a night, at least in those early tournament games to kind of get those things going, I think that’s a little bit better.”
Nivens said the process that was settled on seemed to work pretty well because it helped everyone not get burned out. Cumberland County will remain part of the district tournament cycle after Tennessee Tech opted not to host the District 7AAA tournament this year.
“Thank you to all the fans who came out and supported not only the Cumberland County players, but all the players that were there.” Nivens said. “I really want to thank Nathan Brown, the AD at Stone for all the effort and work that he put behind it, as well as the other administrators that helped us through that with Cumberland County High School.”
