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By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

It’s break time.

After three weeks of summer workouts, the high-school sports teams in Troup County will take the next week off.

The Georgia High School Association has set aside one week each year where teams are prohibited from holding organized activities.

The so-called “dead week” always takes the place the week of July 4th.

This year’s dead week begins on Sunday and goes through next weekend, with teams permitted to resume summer workouts on July 6.

Teams got a late start on summer workouts this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

After schools were shut down for nearly three months, the GHSA gave the go-ahead for teams to begin summer workouts on June 8.

Now, less than a month later, summer workouts will be put on hold for a week.

“I kind of hate that we’re about to go home for a week,” said Troup head football coach Tanner Glisson. “We feel like we’ve been at home for three months, but the way it falls is the way it falls.”

When the dead week ends, players will return to work, and there will be a sense of urgency among the teams that play in the fall.

When summer workouts resume, the start of the fall season will be a month away for the fall-sports teams, with each of the football teams set to play a preseason game on Aug. 8.

For the first two weeks of summer workouts teams weren’t permitted to use balls or other equipment related to their specific sport, and that changed last week.

Teams can’t hold scrimmages yet, and when that will happen has yet to be determined.

The normal summer schedule has obviously been drastically impacted by the coronavirus.

“Things are different,” said Robin Hines, executive director of the GHSA. “These are uncharted waters that we’re going into right now. Everybody is wanting to get back to some normalcy as quickly as we can, but it’s incumbent upon us to do it as safely as we can.”

Hines stressed that “social distancing is still in place and should be strictly followed at all times.”

Beginning in 2021, there will be another “dead week” added to the sports calendar.

During the GHSA’s executive committee meeting this week, a number of issues were voted upon, including the addition of a second week where sports teams in the state are prohibited from holding team activities.

Currently, the only dead week takes place the week of July 4th.

At Tuesday’s meeting, a proposal was voted upon that would create a second dead week the week of Memorial Day, and it passed unanimously.

Beginning in 2021, the new dead week will begin on Memorial Day, a Monday, and will go through the following Sunday.