By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
The unofficial start of the 2026-27 school arrived Wednesday for most area teams participating in fall sports.
That was the date for practices to begin for members of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. All fall sports are contested outdoors except for volleyball.
Competitions can begin August 10 with the exception of football with first games set for August 21.
While most fall teams were able to begin formal workouts Wednesday, the exception was girls’ flag football. Practices for those teams can begin at the end of August.
Coaching notes
Southeast Alamance’s new volleyball coach for the girls’ team is Natasha Watson.
She coached the school’s inaugural boys’ volleyball team in the spring.
- Eastern Alamance had no applicants for its vacancy for a girls’ tennis coach. Athletics director Brad Costa said Tuesday that there’s a backup plan if no potential coach comes forward in the next couple of days.
- Former Graham baseball coach Chad Holland, a physical education teacher at the school, is retiring from Graham effective Saturday, according to the Alamance-Burlington School System’s personnel report.
Since coaching the Graham team, Holland was the first coach of The Burlington School’s baseball program, but he stepped away from that position a couple of years ago.
