Sweet Home Alabama

For those of you who have had the fortunate experience of coming to the great city and state capital of  Montgomery, Alabama you’ll know what I’m talking about. No place throws a Scott Firefighter Challenge like Chief Milford Jordan and his team in the Montgomery Fire Rescue organization. 

For starters, every one of their fire stations and headquarters staff had a team in the relay. And the course-re-cockers came from the academy- all in PT gear and not an unfit member among them. 

This was the new Scott Safety zone manager Bart Copeland’s first Challenge and he couldn’t say enough about how proud he was to be a part of the Scott organization. 

Friday night, under the more than the new sponsor Sunbelt Rentals’ample lights, the individual categories took the field and the highly supportive and enthusiastic crowd hung in there till the end. And what a great end it was. Challenge legends Cory McGee (1:23), Russell “Kraz” Kraznesky (1:25), Darren “Hiller” Hillman (1:26), 2010 World Champion Trevor Fera (1:29) and David Bowman (1:30) posted stellar scores. Kraz now owns World Records for both the over 40 and 45 categories. 

Free breakfast graciously hosted by the City on Saturday morning for all was a great way to start the day. The march-on was impressive with 150 firefighters filling out the bull ring. Mayor Todd Strange gave the crowd a rousing “Southern Hospitality!” welcome and whipped the crowd up to a frenzy over the prospects of hosting a World Challenge next year in Montgomery. Without a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the high 70°s, we had the makings of an all-around world-class event. 

For the first time, we had six CrossFit teams compete in helmets and gloves for a single elimination tournament. It was clear that these people had come to play; they knew the rules and posted some pretty impressive times- especially considering that some of the women were barely 100 pounds soaking wet. 

I can’t think of another venue where city officials and the collective host fire department have embraced the ethos of the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge, more completely or convincingly. Thanks to everyone in Montgomery for their extraordinaty encouragement of firefighter fitness and public safety!