WNBA News: Renee Montgomery Is Measuring Progress In November Terms – Forbes

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - OCTOBER 23: Renee Montgomery and Nafessa Williams attend "Black and Blue" ... [+] Atlanta special screening after party at Sweet Auburn BBQ on October 23, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Screen Gems)

No, Renee Montgomery wont be there when the WNBA begins its 2020 season, scheduled to take place at IMG Academy in late July.

Montgomery, the Atlanta Dream point guard, announced this week that she will opt out of the season. As part of the agreement reached between league and the WNBPA, players have until June 25 to make that decision, with Montgomery the first to declare.

Do not mistake her physical distance for a lack of solidarity with the WNBA players aiming to turn the 2020 season into a clarion call for racial justice.

To me, it doesnt matter who plays, who doesnt, Montgomery told media gathered on a conference call Thursday, saying that shed been in touch with a number of other WNBA players, like Lexie Brown of the Minnesota Lynx and Seimone Augustus of the Los Angeles Sparks. We dont have to be all together, in the bubble, to be united.

But for Montgomery, her advocacy work has mushroomed into something larger than an avocation, and she simply didnt think it would be possible to split her focus between basketball and the efforts to, among other things, make it easier to vote in Georgia.

Those long lines that infuriated so many? They led to Montgomerys change in summer professional plans. This wasnt even on her radar back in February, she said, a basketball lifer who has been on the court nonstop since she was ten years old. So George Floyds murder animated her, as it has so many around the world, behind changing the course of racial justice.

But Renee Montgomery has her eye on something that she views as elemental: making sure as many of her fellow Georgians as possible can vote.

Theres an obvious start point for me: in Atlanta, weve got voter suppression problems, Montgomery said. And weve got an election coming up in November. So for me, theres a timeline, theres a set date, theres a goal.

Montgomery wants to turn voting into what she described as the cool thing to do when Barack Obama ran in 2008 and 2012. But more than that, it is about checking into the systems that are, at best, functioning as unintentional barriers, but really, serving as planned roadblocks to allowing every Georgian the full right to vote.

Accordingly, the focus for Renee Montgomery, champion everywhere shes gone, is a different kind of title.

So look for Renee Montgomery at poll sites, where decisions are made about how many are opened, and questioning officials who make those calls and tilt the electoral landscape by doing so.

Montgomery is used to studying game film. Now? Shes visualizing large crowds of people moving swiftly, in and out, of voting precincts. She wants to set up voters this year, rather than find her teammates open on the wing.

Shes not retiring she made it clear this was about 2020. But that doesnt mean she cant celebrate a victory, and improving Georgias ability to vote is the contest shes engaged in now.

If that happens? Its like I won a championship, Montgomery said.

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WNBA News: Renee Montgomery Is Measuring Progress In November Terms - Forbes