KNOXVILLE — Area high school football and girls soccer teams were allowed to resume full practices on Monday, Aug. 3 after Tennessee Governor Bill Lee granted an exemption to his state of emergency order caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lee extended the state of emergency order through Aug. 29, forcing athletes and teams competing in contact sports such as football, basketball, soccer and wrestling to limit their team activities to conditioning and non-contact drills.
While those sports were limited, cross country and volleyball were permitted to begin full preseason workouts as scheduled. The high school golf season is already underway.
The girls soccer season will begin as scheduled on Aug. 17, however, teams were not allowed to scrimmage against other schools.
Football teams may begin playing games on Thursday, Aug. 20. All scrimmages and 7on-7 passing league tournaments were canceled.