Buying more time

Imperial's head football coach backs decision to delay the upcoming season.

The start of the David Shaw era for Imperial Tigers football is off to the most unusual start.

Months after replacing long-time head coach Kerry Legarra, the Coronavirus Pandemic has caused the local sports landscape to almost completely shut down.

The long-term effects of continued daily high numbers of people testing positive for COVID-19 have prompted the California Interscholastic Federation to move all Fall prep sports to either mid December or early January.

In Shaw's case, the prep football season is tentatively scheduled to start on January 8th, a decision he supports.

"I do think for the health and safety of everybody; for coaches, for players, for families. I would hate for someone to contract, you know, COVID at practice and then take it home to their family. It was the right decision at the time."

Even though it isn't ideal for Shaw to begin his 1st season leading the program with an extra 5 month delay, he looks at it as extra time to prepare his student athletes for the rigors of a season.

Shaw hopes to begin the delayed Summer workout sometime in October.

He previously was one of the Tiger's assistant coaches under Legarra.

Before that, Shaw was the head coach of the Calipatria Hornets football team for 7 seasons.