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By the time the Windsor Forest boy’s basketball team plays its next game on Friday, Jan. 8, exactly 31 days will have passed since the Knights last graced the hardwood. Ranked No. 2 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Class 3A poll, head coach Aaron Clark’s team will try and resume its season with a non-region test at Jenkins (6-4) Friday, before Saturday’s highly-anticipated showdown in the home of the state’s No. 3-ranked team, Johnson (6-0). Tipoff time is set for girls at 3 pm and boys at 4:30 pm.

Since Windsor (2-0) played host to Southeast Bulloch on December 8, 2020, both the girls and boys have had their seasons halted due to COVID-19 complications. Complications, like a spike in positive cases following students’ return from Thanksgiving Break, coupled with restrictions for impossibly tangled contact-tracing webs.

“I’ll just say there is just very, very minimal normalcy. Some days are better than others. Some days it kind of feels normal in the gym. Some days it fades away,” said Clark in a phone conversation with PSR on January 2.

“But then, you know, you realize that as soon as someone sneezes or if there's a sniffle or a running cough … man it all comes back, and you're like .. Oh, wow, this is not good. It's difficult. It's difficult, you know?”

Clark is eager for his team to return, and for good reason. The Knights are loaded with talent and led by star senior guard Shamar Norman and a Power-5 caliber junior wing D’Ante Bass. But the coach still has uneasiness about the week ahead for his team. Nothing, he stresses, is a given.

“Listen, I'm hopeful that we will play this week coming up. I mean, we definitely need to play. I just wanna play against somebody different,” said Clark. “So I am hopeful, but when you look at the numbers and we watch TV and you see everything that's going on … I don't know. 

“It’s like, okay, I could lose this year and that’ll be it for these seniors, but then on the other hand saying, if I get sick and I have grandparents at home of my mom or my dad, and he or she gets sick? Well that changes their entire life. And we're doing this, saying this now, and we're still doing this in the name of basketball? It's difficult, man. And you know, you always want to say, Hey, let's do right by the kids. But is it doing right by the kids playing? Or is it doing right by them going home and losing the entire season, for some, their last? Which one? What is the proper way to do right by the kids? It’s not so clear anymore.”

His hesitancy is sourced in personal tragedy at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s the reason Clark hasn’t rushed his team back quicker than the one month hiatus, and it’s the driving factor for the angst heard clearly in his voice.

“Really, in all actuality, it's different for me,” said Clark when weighing caution versus conditioning. 

“I lost my mother and my grandfather to this pandemic. And that was like … I mean, I was just like ... it took my mother, really? At the beginning of the pandemic in February, we got some paperwork that stated she had gotten it and she died shortly after that of acute respiratory failure. Then my grandfather, he went later during the midst of the pandemic. And so, I understand. I understand what’s at stake better than most. What we can lose. 

Windsor Forest High School, like others in the SCCPSS, begins its spring semester on Wednesday (Jan. 6). A fact which means a return of students from Christmas Break, where supervision and safety aren’t typically top priority.

As tests are given to returning students, there is high potential, says Clark, of a positive spike by the end of next week. It could cause a quick response to be a pivotal one.

“When we go back to school,” he began. “I'm one-hundred-percent sure that there's going to be a (SCCPSS) school closure, in my opinion.”

Still, with all the uncertainty, the Windsor Forest return to the court will be fascinating to watch, especially since the Knights won’t have any time to ease back into its “brand new season.”

“We are really excited to see our full basketball team take the court Friday night against Jenkins and begin another run towards a state championship,” said WF Athletic Director Cam Turner in a text message to PSR.

“And we are also excited to continue watching the turnaround of our girls program.”

The Johnson rivalry speaks for itself, and Clark says the game means a lot to a lot of people. In the last five meetings dating back to the 2018 season, Johnson is 3-2 over Windsor. WF has won two of the last three, however. The five games have all been decided by nine points or less.

“You know, (playing Johnson) is such an intense game … it's a pressurized situation where the city is watching … it’s been like that now, but it wasn’t always like that at Windsor. We weren’t good enough to create any kind of anticipation,” said Clark. “Everybody wants to do their best. you gotta’ be on your A-game and in all facets. But you know what with the mask on your mouth and coaching, and are you gonna miss a call? Are you gonna be able to hear me, you know, call the inbound play? 

“All of those things come into play now, but when it comes that time, and we just kind of take a step back before the game with fewer fans, yes, but I think I’ll still be able to say, Wow, this is really different. It's just a different environment. It's just totally different.”

Follow Travis Jaudon on Twitter @JaudonSports and contact him at travisLjaudon@gmail.com.