AISA state football championships to stay in Montgomery another year
By TIM GAYLE
The Alabama Independent School Association’s state football championships are returning to Cramton Bowl on Nov. 19.
The “Tripleheader” as it is labeled, will feature the Class A championship game at noon, the Class AA game at 3:30 p.m. and the Class AAA game at 7 p.m. Should any MPS school reach the quarterfinals of the Alabama High School Athletic Association playoffs as a host team, the AISA games will be moved to Thursday, Nov. 18.
“It is basically a repeat of last year’s circumstance,” AISA executive director Michael McLendon said. “Troy has a home game scheduled for the following Saturday and that would move our game to Thursday. There is a possibility that we would have to move the games to Thursday (in Montgomery) but we do have the option of playing on Friday and the use of four locker rooms as opposed to two.”
The 2021 championships mark the second consecutive year the event will be held in Montgomery. Like 2020, COVID regulations and policies established by Troy University make it impossible to hold the event on Friday at Veterans Stadium. The Trojans have a game scheduled for Nov. 20 in the stadium and require 48 hours between events in the facility for sanitizing.
Holding the event on Friday (Nov. 19) will depend on the success of the four 6A teams that call Cramton Bowl home. Carver, Lanier, Lee and Park Crossing make up half of the eight-team region that qualifies its top four teams for the state playoffs. Since Park Crossing’s first season in 2014, the five local teams (which includes 7A Jeff Davis) have advanced to the third round of the state playoffs just three times in 19 playoff appearances and only one of the three was a home game.
The Tripleheader, meanwhile, is coming off one of its most successful years after its 2020 debut at Cramton Bowl.
“It’s always difficult to judge the crowd size because that’s determined by which teams are there and their location in the state,” McLendon said, “but the crowd was very good. In fact, I would say it was one of our most highly attended Tripleheader events.”
Since switching to the unified championship site in 2000, the event has been held in Troy every year but one until last year’s move to Montgomery. McLendon said the organization hopes to return to Troy in 2022.
“We met with Troy officials in June and they told us about the circumstances they were in with the stadium,” McLendon said. “But in that meeting, we both talked about how special it was for us to be there and how much they enjoyed having us and to make sure we can come back as soon as possible.”