High school football teams in the state of North Carolina should be ashamed to postpone games because of a little rain!

WITN covers teams in 29 counties across eastern North Carolina and nearly every team in our viewing area postponed their games on Friday night because of the weather. Are you kidding me? I was born and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia and granted high school football isn't the end all be all in the Tidewater area but come hell or high water we were playing football on Friday night.

I could understand if there was a lightning storm in the area or if a hurricane was bearing down on the east, but come on!!! Eastern North Carolina got a few inches of rain from a minimal tropical system that developed off the coast of Florida. On Friday I called WTLV, the NBC affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida and NO games were cancelled, postponed or even had game times pushed back. Gee, I wonder why so many great football players come from the state of Florida!

The excuses I've been given for postponing games in the east have ranged everywhere from "The field conditions are terrible" to "We don't want to jeopardize the safety of our players."

That's a bunch of bull !!!

The bottom line is that high schools in North Carolina lose gate and concession money if they play on a rainy night. As a result they're doing their players a serious injustice.

Think back to when you were a kid. Some of my fondest memories as a child were lacing 'em up and sliding head first down a football field covered in mud. Ask anyone who's ever played the game and rest assured one if not all of their best moments on the field were under adverse conditions.

If we're not going to play football in the rain, let's just call the sport what it really is.... baseball.

Billy Weaver
billy.weaver@witntv.com