CAIRO — Fall sports are set to return at Barber Park next month following a split vote last week by the Grady County Board of Commissioners.

Commissioners voted 3-2 to resume sports including football, soccer and cheerleading this October – a move Recreation Department director Becky Bracewell said allows the department to do what it does best.

“Our motto at Grady County Rec is ‘Our Kids Come First,’ and we’re going to do everything to keep them safe and offer them the programs that the citizens of Grady County want us to offer,” she said.

Commissioners previously provided the Recreation Department a consensus vote of 3-2 to reinstate fall sports, with Commissioners June Knight and LaFaye Copeland dissenting. When commissioners met again last week, they were faced with the question of whether to ratify their earlier action and voted along identical lines, with Commissioner Ray Prince joined by Phillip Drew and commission chair Keith Moye to form a majority.

Last week’s action means the Recreation Department is on pace to begin games in mid-October barring any unexpected weather delays, Bracewell said. Evaluations and drafts are expected to take place next week.

That gives players just two-and-a-half weeks to prepare for gameplay — an amount of time Bracewell said is “limited, though hopefully feasible” before games begin in the third week of October.

Though Bracewell could not provide an exact number of children she expects to take part in the fall sports program, she did say the department is anticipating lower rates of participation than in previous years due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

“We’re assuming that if people sign they’re kids up they want them to play,” she said. “We’re giving them the opportunity to sign up and it is what it is. The parents have made a decision that they want their child to play, and that’s the service that we offer at Parks and Rec.”

Certain precautions are being taken to ensure participants will be safe, such as larger, more spacious practice areas to allow for social distancing.

“I feel really good about it because we’re going to jump through the hoops to do everything possible to keep the children safe,” Bracewell said.

Precautions followed at Recreation Department sporting events will be similar to those followed by the Grady County School System, Bracewell added.

Parents attending sporting events will largely be expected to abide by social distancing guidelines on their own and must provide their own seating.

“They’ve got to make a decision if they want to sit next to somebody,” Bracewell said. “You can’t keep people moving and saying ‘you can’t sit here’ or ‘you can’t sit there.'”