Jr. Raider Football and Cheer program cancels Fall season after MHSAA announcement

On Friday, the Portland Jr. Raider football and cheer program announced that it was canceling its Fall season after the MHSAA announced it was moving the high school football season to the Spring.

Portland Jr. Raiders serves roughly 200 local 4th through 8th graders with youth tackle football and sideline cheer opportunities. The organization had a plan in place to move forward with the regular Fall season as traditionally scheduled with COVID-19 related precautions in place. That plan had conditioning starting the week of August 17th and regular practices starting the week of August 24th.

The organization will investigate the possibility of offering a Spring season, but that may prove extremely difficult with numerous other youth programs offering traditional Spring programs.

In a Facebook post, the Jr. Raider program said “Please be patient with us as we work through the refund process. We will get them out as quickly as possible.”

The same post also said, “For those that attended the equipment hand-out this week, we will be collecting the helmets on Monday, August 17th from 6:00pm-8:00pm at Portland Middle School, near the Press Box. We will have a drive-up table so you can pull up and drop off the helmet, we will just need to know your players name and grade.”