MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Gov. Jim Justice announced Wednesday that the winter sports start date will be pushed back to March 1, a move coming less than two weeks before his original postponed date of Jan. 11.
Winter sports – basketball, wrestling and swim – were set to begin practicing on Jan. 11, with games slated to begin two weeks after that.
“We are targeting March 1 now to be a start-up, and I hate this like crazy, but we are going to have to move our winter sports to March 1,” Justice said. “So that will be the start up date. We’ve got a lot of time left in the school year to be able to play and have the sports. Just think of the numbers we will have vaccinated at that time. Absolutely, we are very hopeful that this thing is going to turn and we can absolutely go to where we can have the sports indoors. And we can do that starting March 1.”
Justice also announced that Tuesday, Jan. 19, all elementary and middle schools in the state will reopen, while high schools will continue to use the state Department of Health and Human Resources map to determine if in-person schooling can occur. Further, counties in orange will be allowed to have in-person classes, a tweak from the 2020 model.
“The much younger kids are so much safer at our schools,” Justice said. “All high schools will not go to school in red, but they will go in orange.”
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