It all begins anew in high school football this week for 2024.
All the energy, all the love, all the learning about one another and yourself goes and grows in front of all of us -- and the wins and losses get registered starting in a quick fashion.
Three schools get to experience that idea of “wins and losses” for the first time in the 2024 season -- Mt. Bethel (with one game in September) and two schools debuting in Class A. The Utopian Academy Eagles play a full schedule this season in Region 4 D1 and Spring Creek Charter’s Stallions in Region 1 D2.
Darius Redman is the man in charge at Utopian Academy for the Arts in Ellenwood. If his name is a little familiar to you, it might be in ACC circles with his time at Virginia Tech as a player before his time in the CFL and a move to Atlanta. Six years ago, through his friendship with UAFA founder, Artesius Miller, Redman came on board. The high school opened up as a ninth and 10th grade institution and is, in 2024, in its first 12th grade class.
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Senior linebacker King Clifton rallies the defense during practice.
“We have a small population this season,” Redman tells me, “...and we only have three seniors. We’ll have a lot of freshmen and sophom*ores. That will be our biggest challenge this year. But we’ll have a roster of 36 players this year. The next two weeks for us will be our big push going into the season.”
The Eagles start their season against BEST Academy this Friday, and it will be a season of getting used to a lot of firsts.
“We’re typically a basketball school going into this year,” he admits. “But football here on campus has been a breath of fresh air. You’ll get a first homecoming and a first Senior night, too.”
Region 4 has some solid playoff teams in Lamar County and Putnam County, along with Social Circle, Jasper County and Towers. But Redman knows his challenges.
“We’ve been preaching that this is our ‘foundation’ year,” Redman says. “We’ll take it a game at a time and hopefully win ones we think we can win. We’ll give it all we have out there every week and find out in the non-region schedule what works and what doesn’t. We hope everyone will adjust quickly to varsity football as folks find out it is faster than JV football.”
If you go on Redman’s account on X (https://x.com/CalcKnowledge), you’ll also see his attachment to the arts. He has his own way of being a difference maker -- “mentoring over a beat” as he describes it. When he was teaching elementary-age students, they knew all the words to songs of the day. But the messaging was bad.
In an environment where there are no footsteps to follow in, Redman and the Eagles are looking to make some noise and go forward every day.
“I want to do whatever it takes to make a difference,” Redman said.
The same applies to Spring Creek Charter head coach Marcus Singletary. Spring Creek is in Bainbridge and they are in their first varsity season after time with middle school and junior varsity squads. They’re starting off with a non-region schedule in Year One.
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Spring Creek Charter will play a non-region schedule this year.
“There’s a lot of excitement here,” Singletary says. “Some folks around here didn’t believe the school could do something like this. A lot of folks think this part of the state is football heaven, so something like this creates a new buzz in the area.”
Singletary is a 20-plus year vet of coaching in the area after graduating from Cairo High School. He’s spent time at his alma mater, Pelham, and Bainbridge in multiple sports along the way. He’ll have a roster of 18 that has expanded from ninth through 11th graders to adding seniors this year.
The eight-game schedule has a home-and-home series with Southwest Georgia STEM, two Christian schools in Florida, and time with Baconton and Pataula Charter.
“It wasn’t all that hard to put a schedule together,” he says. “With all the time I have been coaching, I have a lot of contacts that lead you in the right direction to get games. We’re also a sister school of Pataula Charter so all that helps. It gives us competition. It helps us get better every week. And it gets us under those Friday Night Lights.”
Spring Creek won’t get all that wrapped up in wins and losses, Singletary says. They’re just looking to get one percent better every week, work hard, and create the culture for the future.
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Excitement is high over the new program at Spring Creek Charter.
“This isn’t a normal situation for a coach,” he says when asked what attracted him to the job on campus. “There’s the chance to be a part of the education that teachers provide every day. You show up mentoring students that will be looking to be lawyers and doctors. We're all held to a higher standard here when it comes to academic achievement and, on the field, we get to build something from scratch.”
Building blocks come in many forms.
For the Eagles and Stallions, it’s a chance to build a foundation and be a reminder of the history being formed in both places -- a small part of the 400-plus histories that kick off again very, very soon.
Play it safe, everyone. ... I’ll talk to you soon. ...
