It’s not the Christmas gift Warren County athletes were looking for under the tree.

All Warren County School System sporting events have been cancelled for the rest of the calendar year.

Warren County athletic director Todd Willmore made the announcement Friday afternoon.

In an email, Willmore said, “Effective immediately (December 11, 2020), all athletic events and extracurricular activities are cancelled until January 4, 2021. This includes ALL practices and games or any team social events.”

The decision to halt athletic activity pertains to all Warren County sports teams at the high school and middle school levels.

Warren County High School was scheduled to play boys and girls basketball games Saturday at Franklin County before facing Coffee County on Monday and Cannon County on Tuesday.

Both high school teams were also scheduled to play in Christmas tournaments. The boys were scheduled to compete in a tournament in Sparta, while the girls team had two tournaments on the agenda, one in Gatlinburg and the other in Murfreesboro.

The decision also impacts middle school basketball just as the 7-8 grade season was ramping up. Middle school games were on the schedule this Monday and Thursday.

Warren County joins a growing list of school systems which have cancelled athletics. Two of the largest school systems in the state, Knox County and Hamilton County, have cancelled all athletics until 2021.

Like the rest of the nation, our community is struggling to contain the number of COVID cases. According to the Tennessee Department of Health, Warren County had 442 active coronavirus cases as of Friday.