SECIS Classic football event another victim of COVID-19
Action from the 2019 SECIS Kickoff Classic between Bowling Green (La.) and Gatewood (Miss.). The event had been moved from Montgomery but due to COVID-19 will not be played this year. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
The fifth Southeastern Commission of Independent Schools’ Kickoff Classic will be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic but wasn’t scheduled to return to Montgomery in any case.
“It’s definitely postponed for this year due to COVID,” Alabama Independent School Association executive director Michael McLendon said. “It was scheduled to be hosted in Georgia this year by the Georgia Independent School Association. Due to the uncertainty of what all of our football schedules would look like, the decision was made to suspend that event a while back. Everything has to align properly to make it work in any case and the slightest interference, slightest disruption in scheduling makes it difficult.”
The SECIS Kickoff Classic was a popular event among the four private school organizations and had been held every year since the organization’s inception in Cramton Bowl.
Formed in January, 2016, the Southeastern Commission of Independent Schools is an academic and athletic collaboration of the Alabama Independent School Association, the Georgia Independent School Association, the Mid South Association of Independent Schools and the South Carolina Independent School Association. The organization held its first sports event in the spring of 2016 with a golf tournament, then included football in the fall of 2016.
The football games were scheduled this year in the Atlanta area after officials with the city of Montgomery showed a disinterest in continuing to host the event.
“The other states enjoyed playing at Cramton Bowl,” McLendon said. “They enjoyed the venue, they enjoyed being in Montgomery and we hope that we’re able to secure that venue again in the future. It didn’t work out in some of our most recent conversations with the city but hopefully we can bring that event back to Montgomery.”
Hall of Fame coach Mac Barnes, who played in Cramton Bowl as a player at Meridian (Miss.) High and coached games in Cramton Bowl as a coach at Meridian High, was enthusiastic in his praise for the city and the event after bringing his Lamar School team to participate each year.
“From the word go, it was going to be a very good thing,” he said after his team’s loss to Bessemer Academy in 2016. “For our kids, they’ve never played in a stadium like this.”
His team would turn the tables the next year and defeat Bessemer in a battle of defending state champions. Other interesting matchups in the event included Autauga Academy’s participation in 2017; a battle between a large run-oriented Parklane Academy from the MSAIS and the finesse passing attack of tiny Frederica Academy from the GISA in 2017; and South Carolina’s first win in 2018 as Thomas Heyward defeated Brookhaven 49-21.
“The kids will always remember it,” Brookhaven coach Ron Rushing said. “It’s a beautiful stadium, a great atmosphere for them to play in. I wish we could’ve played better, but we’re glad to come over here and we’d love to do it again.”
Last year, Bowling Green School made history as the MSAIS school from Franklinton, La., became the first Louisiana team to compete in the event.
Because of a turnover in city officials who welcomed the event in 2016 to those who indicated they didn’t want the event in 2020, SECIS administrators started shopping for another location as soon as the 2019 event concluded. GISA officials, who initially planned to hold the inaugural event in 2016 and who hosted the last SECIS golf tournament at St. Simons Island in 2019, had tentatively found a site in the Atlanta area but as the coronavirus pandemic spread, they immediately canceled both events.
The SECIS golf tournament has built-in problems as a spring sport because of the different championship dates of the respective associations. That problem has come into play as well with organizers who would like to add other sports, such as baseball, soccer and softball.
“Everybody’s season runs a little different, which makes it harder to get the other sports on board because our seasons don’t align,” McLendon said. “That’s been brought up, to use it as an opportunity to hold a sports week (in one city) where we could bring multiple sports together. In softball, for us, it could be the teams that just finished up; in Georgia, where it’s a fall sport, it could be the upcoming classes. The problem with some of those sports is when you get into the summer months, you get into travel ball and rec ball. Would there still be the interest in trying to have school team events during that time?”
The Capital City would be a logical site for an SECIS Sports Week, considering the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s All-Star Sports Week has been held in Montgomery for most of its tenure. The addition of an SECIS basketball tournament at Garrett Coliseum in December could be a possibility as well, provided renovations are made to the facility.