OAKWOOD — Within a two-hour window on Monday, the West Hall football team demonstrated how to crisis manage with the best of them.
West Hall coach Krofton Montgomery and his troupe of Spartans were just getting ready to know their Week 1 opponent. They were set to gather on Monday to go over the game plan for their season-opener against East Jackson on Friday. But before the entire team could even assemble, Montgomery had been informed that the Eagles would have to cancel due to a positive COVID-19 test causing them to go into a mandatory quarantine.
In a normal season, under normal circumstances, finding a replacement game would have been unheard of on such short notice. But these are not normal times.
East Jackson’s quarantine also caused the Eagles’ Week 2 game against Jackson County to be canceled. As it so happened, Montgomery and Panthers’ coach Rich McWhorter had talked in the offseason about trying to find an open week for the two teams to play.
Less than two hours after learning of the cancelations with East Jackson, the two coaches had quickly agreed to play on Friday.
There’s probably no documented history, but it may have been the quickest scheduled, and most improbable, game in recent memory.
AccessWDUN’s Jeff Hart caught up with Montgomery a day after the roller coaster ride of emotions to discuss just how it transpired among other key topics concerning the navigation of high school football in 2020.
