ECI’s Ealey breaks state career TD record

It was his first high school game.

"It was when I was in the ninth grade against Atkinson County," Ealey said. "It was more like a pass. I broke a couple of tackles. They had it in the newspaper: 'Ealey sheds tacklers.'"

Three years later, Touchdown No. 112 will make a few newspapers, too.

Ealey -- who is averaging more than 2.5 touchdowns per game since that first one -- holds the state record for career touchdowns after scoring three Friday night against Johnson County in a 35-12 victory.

Ealey has 113, breaking the record of Pacelli's Matt Dunham, who had 111 during the 2001-2004 seasons.

If Ealey hasn't changed much since those freshman days -- "All I ever wanted was to get better so I could get a scholarship to Georgia," he says -- things around Twin City and this high school, opened in 1903, surely have.

With Ealey scoring a Georgia single-season record of 58 touchdowns, ECI won its first state title in 2007 in Class A.

Starting this season, ECI games now are on the FM station in Swainsboro, the city 11 miles away. Games for Swainsboro High, a Class AA school, have been relegated to AM.

Two Savannah TV stations are at almost every game.

"You've got to keep an eye on him," said Dal Cannady of WTOC-TV. "I've seen him spin off people, run over people and hurdle people. People like to see the exciting run."

Cannady's grandparents lived on land where ECI's gymnasium now stands.

Cannady remembers when ECI's press box was "a garden shed up on stilts." That was only about five years ago. It has been renovated.

This offseason, the booster club installed a $95,000 scoreboard. There's also a new "brag board" near the other end zone. It tells of the six region titles and 18 trips to the playoffs.

A five-window concession opened just this week. It stands in an end zone once occupied by the "big pine at ECI," which had stood for 50 years.

It would be easy to call it the Dog Pound that Washaun Ealey built, but this has always been a football town that just couldn't win the big one in the playoffs.

In fact, Ealey's most memorable touchdown, he said, was the opening kickoff return in the playoffs last year against Seminole County. It was ECI's first victory in the first round since 1998.

"The support's always been there, but it's intensified and magnified," said Dave Henry, ECI's PA announcer who calls plays on defense.

When Ealey scored the historic touchdown, it was "Move over, Matt Dunham. There's an all-time new record-holder."

That was the call of Jesse Johnson, the voice on offense.

"What you see in the stands is everybody in town," Johnson said. "There's 1,700 in Twin City. There's 1,700 down there."

A couple of hundred fans gathered on the field after the game when Ealey was honored for the record. As Ealey would want it, Johnson read the names of the 17 offensive linemen who had blocked for Ealey in his four seasons.

Ealey is one of just five Georgia players to surpass 100 touchdowns in a career. Herschel Walker, who played at Johnson County in the late 1970s, had 86.

Ealey finished this night with 243 yards on 23 carries.

"The record, it's not really being on my mind," he said. "It's a good thing, but we're just trying to win another state championship."