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More than 140 high school football head coaches responded to Georgia High School Football Daily's questionnaire on some of the biggest issues facing the sport.
GHSF Daily's Todd Holcomb has written a series of stories based on the results of that questionnaire. The series began on Sunday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and will continue throughout state championship week.
Here are portions of the first three parts, with links to the complete stories.
Coaches: It's a parent trap
A high school football coach in Georgia was asked by members of his school's booster club if they could review game film and make suggestions. The coach declined.
Another Georgia coach was accused by a mother of costing her son a scholarship to an SEC school because the coach demoted him to second string. The player was 5 feet 4 and had no offers.
Another was included on a prayer list by a Baptist women's circle. The women prayed that he would be fired.
For the complete story, click here.
Top ingredients for a winning program
Talented players, good coaching and administrative support are the main ingredients behind a winning high school football program, a survey of Georgia's head football coaches showed.
More than 90 percent of the 147 coaches who responded to a questionnaire compiled by Georgia High School Football Daily for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution listed one of those three components as the most important asset to winning.
Much less significant - and cited by fewer than 10 percent as the most important - were facilities, money, community and parental support, feeder programs and enrollment size. Only 12 of the 147 coaches listed any of those factors.
For the complete story, click here.
Private school classification dilemma
More than 80 percent of head football coaches in public schools want private schools classified differently, which remains the most divisive issue within the Georgia High School Association.
The state's football coaches line up on predictable sides, according to a survey conducted by Georgia High School Football Daily for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
An even higher percentage of private school coaches - 88 percent - want private and public schools classified strictly by enrollment numbers and competing against each other for the same championships, according to the 147 coaches who responded to the questionnaire.
For the complete story, click here.
Biggest changes in the sport
Year-round training. A more sophisticated passing game. College recruiting. Problems with parents and players.
There is more of all of it now, Georgia's high school football coaches said, but there's no consensus on the single biggest change in the sport since they got into the profession.
"Everything has changed," said Jefferson's T. McFerrin, whose career began as an assistant at Druid Hills in 1965. "We didn't work out in the summer when I started. Now, there are all these quarterback camps and receiver camps, speed training. I wish I'd known then what I do now, the one-back stuff, how we attack defenses. It scared us to death that somebody might come out with three wide receivers."
For the complete story, click here.
Diversity among coaches
Duluth football coach Corey Jarvis didn't think race would be an issue when he was one of the top coaching candidates on the market in Georgia during the offseason.
Jarvis had spent five seasons at M.L. King, a Class AAAAA school in DeKalb County. His record was 49-11. He had won a region title and sent more than 50 players into college football.
"I went on a couple of interviews outside the metro area," Jarvis said. "One guy [on a hiring committee] asked if I didn't get the head coaching job would I be a coordinator. He didn't feel like the area was ready for a black head coach. That was kind of a slap in the face. I came in with just as good a resume and presentation as anybody else had. They wouldn't ask anybody else that, would they?"
For the complete story, click here.
Best active coaches, best of all time
Larry Campbell of Lincoln County and Jeff Herron of Camden County are Georgia's best high school football coaches (Campbell all-time and Herron active), according to a survey of their Georgia coaching peers.
The survey, conducted by Georgia High School Football Daily for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, asked head coaches to name Georgia's three best active coaches and three best all-time coaches.
Campbell, who has won 11 state championships and a state-record 447 games, was named as one of the three best coaches in history by 47.4 percent of coaches who participated in this portion of the survey.
The next most commonly cited coach was the late Nick Hyder, at 44.2 percent. Hyder won six state titles while at Valdosta from 1974 through 1995.
For the complete story, click here.
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