At least 18 people are dead and millions of homes and businesses are without power after Superstorm Sandy battered the Eastern Seaboard on Monday. At times like these, sports hardly seem to matter. In fact, according to MaxPreps.com, high school events from Massachusetts to Florida were rescheduled or postponed as Sandy approached land, and college and professional sports teams were affected, too.
MaxPreps reported that in New Jersey, Wildwood High School's football field was underwater even before the full brunt of Sandy hit, and Atlantic City High's football coach Tom Kelly was already worried about communication: "Half of the city is underwater," he tweeted Monday. "Hard to get in-touch with my guys."
The site, powered by CBSSports.com, also posted the following updates:
• In Connecticut, a ban on athletic events taking place on Sunday was lifted in order to get events moved up. The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the state's governing board, moved up many of its events from this week to Sunday because the last date to complete the regular season is Thursday.
• In New York, the Section 1 football semifinals were postponed from today to Wednesday.
• All events scheduled for Monday in Rhode Island were postponed, according to the Rhode Island Interscholastic League.
• The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association plans to reschedule many of its regional tournament games in several sports. Once the weather clears, "there are no days off if the tournament is behind schedule, except Sundays," the association posted on its website.
• In Massachusetts, the Boston City League soccer and volleyball playoffs were postponed.
Further inland, Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League officials said that Sandy could affect the first round of Class A and AA football playoffs this weekend at natural-grass sites. "The most disturbing thing is they're going to make a declaration Thursday morning if we can use our field," Dave Leasure, head coach at Springdale High School, told Trib Total Media. "That's the hardest thing for me, after we've earned home field."
Rutgers officials deflated its air-supported practice dome in advance of the storm and canceled team activities and practices Monday and Tuesday, according to MyCentralJersey.com. Other major campuses - including UConn, Maryland, Boston College and Temple - shut down Monday, as well, leaving football practice schedules quite literally up in the air for Tuesday.
College basketball is taking a hit, too. The Sporting News reports that:
• Penn State postponed its on-campus Media Day, scheduled for Monday, after campus was closed. No new date was chosen.
• Virginia Commonwealth University was closed but the team has maintained its regular practice schedule. The Rams play their first exhibition game Thursday against Virginia Union.
• Villanova, whose campus also closed, was able to adjust its practice times to early Monday, before the worst of the storm had arrived, and the team was hoping to return to the court later Tuesday.
• At Virginia, classes were canceled but the storm had yet to make a severe impact. Monday practice for the basketball program was moved to the morning hours.
As David Harten of NBC Sports wrote Monday night: "With exhibition games starting soon around the nation, teams don't necessarily have to worry about totally altering their schedules, but with this storm looking to cause a lot structural damage and flooding, [that means] repairs to college campuses and athletic facilities."
In the pro ranks, the NFL has pushed back its trading deadline from tonight to Nov. 1, and some NBA teams revised travel plans in advance of season openers, according to TIME.com. Airlines were expected to resume regular East Coast flights Wednesday.
As if rain and flooding weren't enough, up to three feet of snow is forecast for parts of West Virginia by Wednesday morning - which could wreak more havoc on high school and college schedules.
