Pandemic Forces Postponement of CCHS Football Season

The CCUSD school year has now officially been underway for over a month in its new distance learning format, and one aspect of regular school that has definitely been missed is Culver City sports, particularly the CCHS football team. 

The Culver City varsity football team has had much success in recent years. In the 2018 season they won their first CIF division championship in exactly forty years, and last season they finished the regular season undefeated with a record of 10-0. The team is helped led by head coach Jahmal Wright and senior quarterback Zevi Eckhaus, the latter who worked his way up to the starting quarterback position for the varsity team by his sophomore year, and was an instrumental part of the team’s road to a CIF championship two years ago.

Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the status of the team’s season has been on halt and will not begin on its normal schedule. Coach Wright, who is entering his 12th year with this coaching position said that the current status of “the season is neither postponed or canceled. The season has been rescheduled to start in January,” and that they are “still waiting for the green light from the LA County health officials and the governor on when they will allow us [the team] to actually start [team] practice.” 

With the team’s past success, there were high expectations for this upcoming year. The CCHS football team finally moved up to the Bay League this season due to the success of the team after being in the Ocean League for many years. After winning the CIF championship two years ago, the team lost 32 seniors for the next season and Eckhaus, who’s ultimate goal is to help the team win a championship again this year, remembers how “not a lot of people thought we would be good [the following year]. But we ended up going 10-0 and you know just seeing how even with not a lot of players coming back we were able to be so successful, seeing that this year we have a lot of players coming back and we didn’t lose as many, I was feeling really good about this season and this team.” 

Especially with the seniors, there was obviously some disappointment after the team heard about this upcoming season being somewhat postponed. Eckhaus said that hearing the postponement was a shocker to a lot of people on the team, but stated that “one thing that I tried to stress to my teammates was just to try and stay positive. … kind of get through this, keep working individually, keep making sure that we’re in shape so that you know when this all clears up we can get back together and work and be a successful football team.” 

Coach Wright understandably said that playing football was “kind of the last thing on my mind.” As these are unprecedented times, he stated his concern for the health and well-being of his family and players. 

However, the whole team also realizes the importance of practicing and staying in shape for when the season may begin in January, even if they cannot physically meet with each other. Coach Wright said that the players’ motivation and dedication to playing football means that they can “take it upon themselves to stay in shape individually and they do their own workouts.” The team meets multiple times a week through Zoom sessions as well to stay in touch with one another and discuss plays and schemes to be prepared for whenever they can collectively meet and resume practices.

Regardless of when the team will finally be able to begin their season, the players on the CCHS football team have continued to work hard and stay motivated to improve and become better football players for the upcoming season. With a quality coaching staff and a talented group of players on the team, they seem poised to make another run towards a championship this season.