Lack of referees delays Rome-Sprayberry start

Sprayberry and Rome’s Region 7-AAAA championship game started late, and it had nothing to do with the rain that moved into metro Atlanta Friday night.

A scheduling mix-up with the Atlanta Peach State Football Officials Association resulted in no officials being sent to the game in east Cobb.

“Have you ever in your life? We’ll play it, eventually,” said Sprayberry coach Billy Shackelford.

Sprayberry defeated Rome, 27-6, to win the late-starting game.

Officials were to be escorted by Cobb County police from the Kennesaw Mountain-Marietta game in Marietta after it ended in order to play the region title game.

Rome officials were given the option of playing the game Saturday, but the school had chartered five buses as well as school buses for the trip from Floyd County and chose to wait out the delay.

Both teams, both bands and fans for each team were forced to wait nearly three hours before the start of Friday night’s contest. Instead of doing traditional halftime shows, both bands entertained the crowd before the rescheduled start of 10:15 p.m.

APSFOA officials were trying to figure out the scheduling gaffe.

“Those games get swapped around,” said APSFOA vice president Keith Collis. “Some of those might’ve been farmed out to the GFOA [Georgia Football Officials Association] or Atlanta Area [Officials Association]. We had a really heavy schedule this week. There are some weeks where we may have 18 or 19 games, which is way too many, and we’ll get together with the GFOA and even it out. I do know we had [Rome vs. Sprayberry] originally, but it could’ve been swapped out months ago.

“It was on the schedule, but I’ve got to talk to Larry,” Collis said, referring to APSFOA booking officer Larry Hobgood. “I’ve got a call into him now.”

Hobgood was unavailable because he was officiating a game, according to Collis. Collis was recovering from a heart attack earlier in the week, which is why he wasn’t doing a game Friday night.

“There was a mix up on who was supposed to contact officials from what I understand, but I don’t have all of the details just yet,” said Georgia High School Association executive director Dr. Ralph Swearngin.

Dennis Payne, the GHSA’s associate director and administrator for football, also was still trying to figure it all out. The GHSA could take action against any officials association since the governing organization assigns officials for the playoffs, which begin next week.

“I don’t really know what happened. We will figure that out next week,” said Payne, who was at the Kennesaw Mountain-Marietta game. “We don’t really know right now. Monday morning, I will have it all straightened out.”

Both Sprayberry and Rome are guaranteed of making the playoffs and hosting a first-round game next week in the Class AAAA tournament.

— Staff writer Darryl Maxie contributed to this story