The official dress rehearsal for the Cumberland County Schools high school football season takes place Friday night with separate evenings of preseason scrimmages involving all 10 schools and several outside schools invited to fill out the schedule.
Tonight’s scrimmages will be held at E.E. Smith and Douglas Byrd high schools, respectively, with the action at both schools beginning at 5 p.m.
The schedule for E.E. Smith is:
9 p.m.: E.E. Smith vs. St. Pauls.
The Douglas Byrd schedule is:
Scrimmages are not games. They simulate game conditions, but no official score is kept so there is no winner and loser in a scrimmage.
The teams will use live referees in the scrimmages who are also undergoing training for the upcoming season.
Like football players themselves, said Errol Daniels, regional supervisor of officials, at Tuesday’s county football jamboree luncheon, the officials have been taking part in voluntary 6 a.m. workouts to get ready for the season.
In addition to getting on-field training at the scrimmages for referees, Daniels said, officials who operate the game clocks also will undergo training during one of the scrimmages.
Admission at each scrimmage site is $10 for the entire session.
No tickets will be sold at the gate. All tickets must be purchased online at one of the following links.
For Douglas Byrd tickets: Ccs.hometownticketing.com/embed/event/3916.
For E.E. Smith tickets: Ccs.hometownticketing.com/embed/event/3917.
Earl’s Pearls
He has been involved in a number of business ventures since finishing his education. He took a swing at politics with terms as mayor of Spring Lake and a run for the U.S. Senate from North Carolina. But recently, he accepted what might be the biggest challenge of his life.
Rey will become president of Barber-Scotia College in Concord.
The school has a rich history, ranking as the second-oldest historically Black college in the state behind Shaw University. It is the 17th-oldest historically black college in the nation.
The school has distinguished alumni, most notable among them Mary McLeod Bethune, famed educator and adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt.
But the school fell on hard times in 2004 when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools stripped its accreditation, accusing it of awarding degrees to some students who had not fulfilled the proper requirements.
Since then, the college has fallen in debt. Although the situation might appear hopeless to many, Rey said it is an opportunity he felt compelled to take on.
“I believed it would be a disservice not to at least try,” he said. “These types of institutions have provided a way of life for many folks, specifically in the African-American community.
“HBCUs create an ecosystem that helps not just Black folks, Brown folks, white folks; it just creates a more equal system that really helps individuals find their path and their way.”
One of Rey’s biggest mentors was the late Congressman John Lewis, who was at the forefront of the civil rights movement and a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr.
Lewis campaigned for Rey during his runs for mayor of Spring Lake.
Before Lewis passed away, Rey said, he passed the baton to him and gave him a charge to do his part for his generation and the world.
Rey visited Barber-Scotia while he was at East Carolina.
“I’m going to use my talents and my national and international network to save this college,” he said. “I know it’s a big mountain. But mountains are made to climb.”
He has already kicked off a fundraising campaign for the school and plans to expand its curriculum to offer study in what he calls niche programs like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and the many applications for using airborne drones.
His big selling point for now is how affordable an education at Barber-Scotia is, costing only $12,000 in tuition for four years.
He is reaching out to companies, individuals and nonprofit organizations to establish 300 scholarships he can offer to prospective students.
“Those will allow me to recruit people to come here,” Rey said.
His promise to them will be that while Barber-Scotia is not accredited now, it will be within the four years it will take them to graduate.
“We want to be that institution that provides that opportunity for those individuals in areas of learning that other institutions aren’t focused on,” he said.
Rey admits he doesn’t yet have all the answers to what some of those degree programs will look like, but he hopes the affordability of the school will set Barber-Scotia apart.
“It’s going to be one of the things that will make us an option for a lot of folks,” he said.
Follow Earl Vaughan Jr. on Twitter: @EarlVaughanJr.
