No Shrine Bowl in 2020, but game will find way to honor top SC and NC seniors
The Shrine Bowl won’t happen in 2020.
The marquee, annual all-star football game that pits the best players from South Carolina against the best from North Carolina has been suspended due to the “challenges of COVID-19,” the Shrine Bowl Board of Governors announced Friday.
The decision was made at a special executive meeting Thursday, where the Shrine Bowl Board of Governors Executive Committee unanimously voted to suspend the 2020 game, according to a statement from organizers.
The event, which was going into its 84th year, was scheduled for Dec. 19 in Gibbs Stadium on Wofford’s campus in Spartanburg.
Shrine Bowl coaches will still select a team of 44 players from each state in October so players can “add this honor to their list of achievements for their high school career,” game chairman Ronnie Blount said in a statement.
“We are learning that with the current circumstances, and the monumental efforts that it will take to meet the challenges of COVID-19 in which we are now faced, are those that cannot hardly be achieved by us at this time,” Blount said in a statement. “In short, if we are not able to produce a great quality game as we have done the past 83 years and provide the best game possible for our sponsors, players, coaches and patrons, then we should not play the game this year.”
South Carolina Shrine Bowl coach Jerry Brown, who now coaches at Wade Hampton, said suspending the game until next year was “the prudent thing to do.”
“It will be a good thing just to have a season this year. We have put a lot of hours of watching film,” Brown said. “And we will still select the best players we can and honor them even though there will be no game.”
Brown said he and the rest of the S.C. coaching staff will be able to coach in the game next year.
The significance of the Shrine Bowl
The Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas’ inaugural game was played on Dec. 4, 1937 in Charlotte, making it the oldest high school football all-star game in the United States, according to its website.
Several nationally-recognized players participated in the premier contest when they were seniors in high school. The list includes current NFL players like Stephon Gilmore, Jadeveon Clowney, Mason Rudolph and more.
Several players who played in last year’s contest are in high-level Division I programs this year — including USC’s Ger-Cari Caldwell, Tennessee’s Jalin Hyatt and Wake Forest’s Quinton Cooley.
Although an all-star exhibition, the Shrine Bowl has the spirit of a rivalry game. Last year, the South Carolina Sandlappers earned their first Shrine Bowl victory over the North Carolina Tar Heels since 2014.
What does Shrine Bowl suspension mean for SC, NC football seasons?
The South Carolina and North Carolina football seasons are still, in many ways, up in the air.
Earlier this month, the South Carolina High School League agreed that the earliest a high school football game will be played will be Sept. 11. This best-case scenario — approved in an attempt to still have a fall sports season despite surging coronavirus positive cases across the state — allows for a 7-week regular season, with the playoffs starting the last week of October and the state’s championship games played on Nov. 20.
Under this plan, the football season can be pushed back up to two weeks — first games starting Sept. 25 and the postseason ending Dec. 4 — without having to alter its structure.
In North Carolina, a similar plan is in place: The N.C. High School Athletic Association announced in July that it would delay the start of high school practice until at least Sept. 1 — meaning that its first game wouldn’t be until mid-September.
Dean Boyd, who was the S.C. Shrine Bowl coach last year and has been a coach in South Carolina for decades, said suspending the Shrine Bowl might allow the state’s regular season schedules to be more flexible.
“We don’t frame (the season) around those games, but we try to stay away from those dates if we can,” Boyd said of the Shrine Bowl and North-South all-star game.
There are still plans to have the North-South Football Game which is put on by the state’s football coaches association and held in Myrtle Beach every year.
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 3:36 PM.
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