Gray Collegiate recently announced plans to replace most of the football games it will lose as a result of region opponents forfeiting games in protest of the alleged competitive advantage such public charter schools get from competing in divisions based on student population.

But while it now looks like the team will now play a mostly full schedule, the school’s student-athletes will still be impacted by losing the opportunity to play against region foes.

Gray offensive and defensive lineman JT Sowell spoke to the crowd at a Sept. 12 meeting announcing the replacement games about how disheartening it is for he and his teammates, many of whom haven’t yet committed to play at the college level, to have the season disrupted. 

“I have teammates who need film from these games that we’re missing that could potentially earn them a scholarship and because these schools are refusing to play us, they might not get those scholarships,” Sowell said. 

During the meeting for parents and athletes of Gray Collegiate Academy held Sept. 12, the school’s principal, Brian Newsome, and athletic director and head football coach, Adam Holmes, announced plans to make up games the team is losing as a result of forfeits by its region opponents.

Holmes announced the football team will replace the previously scheduled game Sept. 15 at Eau Claire with a trip to D.C. to play St. John’s College School, who is ranked 30th in the nation according to High School Football America. That game will take place Saturday, Sept. 16 at 1 p.m. Holmes said the team will also use the trip as a learning experience, planning to visit Arlington National Cemetery to witness the Changing of the Guard.

Gray will play its homecoming game scheduled for Sept. 29 against Portal High School from outside of Statesboro, Ga. That night was originally scheduled to play Columbia. 

Holmes went on to announce that the team will be traveling to Clearwater, Fla. to play Clearwater Academy Oct. 6. That day originally had Gray scheduled to play region foe Fairfield Central. 

There’s still one more game potentially being scheduled with a team in South Carolina, but Holmes declined to disclose the identity of the team publicly until the details of the game are finalized.

Gray hasn’t announced replacements for two region forfeits —  Mid-Carolina on Sept. 22 and Keenan on Oct. 20 — and the status of its game against Newberry on Oct. 13 remains up in the air.

“It hadn’t been easy. I hated that it’s taken away a lot of what I’m trying to do as a football coach preparing guys to play,” Holmes said in a press conference after the meeting. 

Holmes said he has constantly been making calls in an effort to schedule games on short notice, getting help from his assistants to start practices while he was trying to schedule games.

Holmes also mentioned that he got a lot of positive cooperation from the coaches from St. John’s, Clearwater Academy and Portal High to get these games scheduled. In some instances, Holmes said, the travel expenses will be taken care of by their new opponents.

“We’re lucky those schools are paying our expenses to come out there and play,” he said. “We’re not having to pay to go up to D.C. and the amount of money they’re going to give us will cover our hotels and our meals and cover us to go out and do some of these things up there in D.C.”

“It’s not costing us anything extra,” the coach added. “Actually, we’ll probably make a little money off of it as well. These are two games that we didn’t expect to have as home games that we’re going to be able to be compensated for as well.”

Last month, the South Carolina High School Sports League ruled that fines for forfeiting region games will not be enforced and as a result, the bulk of Gray Collegiate’s region opponents have informed the War Eagles they will not play against them and will forfeit.

On Sept. 12, Newsome told the crowd of parents and student athletes, many of whom were wearing their Gray Collegiate jerseys, that plans are in place to reschedule as many forfeited games as possible for all sports. 

“We have developed a plan,” Newsome told the crowd. “I tell our student athletes all the time, ‘We can’t control the actions of others, we can only control our reaction to make sure we find a positive resolution.’ And that’s what we did.”

The principal told the crowd to monitor the school website for any updates on scheduling for these sports, noting that they will be rescheduled now that they have the go-ahead from the High School Sports league to reschedule them.  

After the meeting, Sowell, Newsome, Holmes and boys basketball coach Dion Bethea and parents Matt Cunningham and Genia Kearney answered questions about the situation. 

There was a shared sentiment of disappointment with the region opponents forfeiting games, but also gratitude from the administration at Gray finding replacement games and ensuring that seasons will be played in their entirety as much as possible.