COVID-19 is having a huge effect on sports, especially high school football.
The Corky Kell Classic, a Georgia high school football jamboree held annually usually lasting three days at the beginning of the football season, has decided to operate this year’s kickoff event at nine locations.
This comes after several moves were made since Mercedes-Benz Stadium would not be able to host Saturday’s matchups and games were eventually moved to Mill Creek High School in Gwinnett County. After the GHSA announced the two-week delay pushing the season to the start of September, this altered starting times with Alabama and Georgia season eventually forcing Hoover High School out of this year’s classic. Hoover was originally scheduled to play Lowndes.
After major health concerns and precautions of Public Health officials, the doubleheader between the two teams which was scheduled to be played at Rome’s Barron Stadium was also canceled.
Corky Kell executive director Dave Hunter stated advice from health officials contributed to the decision to play at nine different locations.
Notably, Carver will play Cherokee on Wednesday, September 2nd at 5:30pm. 10 minutes after the first game finishes, the Mays Raiders play at West Forsyth.
“Our management group has met several times during this crisis and then we got some advice from the medical community in our state and we just felt like with their recommendation that we should not be playing multiple games at one site,” said Hunter.
The question of whether the classic and football should be played weighed through the mind of Hunter but he explained why he decided to play.
“The easy thing for us to do would have been to just cancel it and people probably would have understood with everything going on, but we felt it was better to turn over every rock and try to make this happen,” said Hunter. “These kids have been working hard since June and they deserve something to look forward to.”
I.J. Rosenburg who is the President of Score Atlanta and Corky Kell Partner stated, “Last Friday, it didn’t look good but we got on the phone with our two other partners (Jimmy Dorsey and Beverly Postell) and decided we would try to work through it.”
Hunter also noted that all nine games will be televised either through CBS46 over the span of four days.
The classic is planned to begin on Wednesday, September 2, and concludes on Saturday, September 5. For a full list of teams and schedule, check out the Score Atlanta website.
