Storm could impact Friday night football

Tropical storm Hanna is likely to impact high school football somewhere in North Carolina on Friday.

The storm, downgraded from a hurricane early Tuesday, is on several computer-predicted paths to possibly hammer Charlotte and/or surrounding areas with rain and wind.

It has school systems scurrying to plan possible changes. That’s no small task for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, which can’t easily shift Friday’s football games to Thursday.

That would interfere with junior-varsity football on Thursdays.

Move the JV to Wednesday? Well, soccer uses several of the fields that night.

Plus, it’s too early (Tuesday lunchtime as I type) to predict exactly where the storm will hit. But there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to get messy in Charlotte.

Hurricane predictions have improved tremendously the past 20 years. I know, I grew up in southern Louisiana. My back still hurts from hauling in both grandmothers’ potted plants and garbage cans a day or two before an arriving storm (then dragging them back out again).

Let’s say Charlotte and surrounding areas get pounded Friday. It’d be too difficult to reschedule the games for Saturday – the storm could be slow-moving, folks might need time to clean up damage and fields will need to dry.

The most likely scenario – assuming nothing disastrous happens – would be for many of the football games to be played Monday.

But, like the storm, that’s up in the air.

-- Cliff Mehrtens