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July 28 - Aug. 3, 2016 • Page 19A
New season,
new regions
Coaches discuss changes at
annual football media day
by Carla Parker
carla@dekalbchamp.com
The new classification and
region alignments were hot
topics at the annual DeKalb
County Football Media Day at
Tucker High School on July
20.
The Reclassification
Committee of the Georgia
High School Association
released the region
alignments Dec. 1,2015
for the 2016-18 term. The
committee added a new
classification, and many
DeKalb schools—public and
private—moved up or down a
region or two.
Decatur High School is
one of the schools that moved
up two regions—from Class
AAA to Class AAAAA.
“That’s going to be
a tremendous challenge
for us but we’re looking
forward to it,” Decatur coach
Scott Jackson said. “The
downside of that is we won’t
be in a region with a lot of
[DeKalb schools] that we’ve
become familiar with playing
throughout the seasons.
We’ll kind of miss those
relationships that we’ve had
but we’ll make some new
ones.”
Decatur will be in Region
6-AAAAA with schools from
Fulton and Atlanta Public
Schools.
Marist and St. Pius, which
remained in Class AAAA, saw
the most dramatic change in
its realignments. Both football
programs will travel at least 50
to 70 miles to play opponents.
Neither school is in a region
with a DeKalb school, and the
only DeKalb matchup is Marist
versus Chamblee on Sept. 23.
Marist and St. Pius will
play each other on Sept. 9.
St. Pius coach Paul Standard
jokingly refused to apologize
for not facing the tough
DeKalb teams this season.
“I’m not sorry because
it’s some great teams in
this county, so I’m glad we
don’t have to play all of you,”
Standard said. “We will miss
the competition with the
schools that we’ve been with.”
Tucker is back in a region
(4-AAAAAA) with county rivals
M.L. King and Stephenson,
and will also have a tough
non-region schedule.
“We’re playing some very
strong DeKalb teams, some
Clayton County schools,”
Tucker coach Bryan Lamar
said. “So we’re definitely going
to have our work cut out for
us, as well as a pretty tough
non-region schedule that
includes Kell High School and
Colquit County. We definitely
have some challenges ahead
of us but I think the group that
we have they’re willing to work
up to the challenge.”
Coach Roderick Moore
is entering his third year at
Redan and is hoping to get
over the hump to have his first
winning season. However,
his team will be in a region
(5-AAA) with multiple playoff
teams as they strive for a
winning season.
“It’s time to turn the corner
but I didn’t know we were
going to turn the corner into
Cedar Grove, Westminster,
Pace, Lovett, Stone Mountain,
McNair and Towers, but we’re
turning the corner,” Moore
said. “At the end of the day
we’re going to come out and
we’re going to give you 100
percent effort. Anybody that
we play our young men will
be ready, they’re going to be
disciplined, and when the
clock strikes zero we’ll see
what happens.”
Redan will face a hungry
Cedar Grove team that had
a disappointing end to its
2015 season with a loss to
Westminster in the semifinals
of the playoffs. Coach
Jermaine Smith said his
players have been preparing
this offseason with a chip on
their shoulders.
“We felt like we didn’t
play our best game and
[Westminster] played a good
game,” Smith said. “Not to
take nothing from them but we
wanted to play our best game
in that situation. We felt like
we didn’t do our best and we
want to fix that.”
Cedar Grove’s head football coach Jermaine Smith speaks to reporters about his team’s
upcoming season During the DeKalb County Football Media Day. Photos by Travis Hudgons
Tucker Tigers
St. Pius X Golden Lions
Redan Raiders
