AJC > Sports > Football Recruiting > Blog > Archives > 2009 > February > 04 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USBig moments for metro Atlanta players
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Categories
Across metro Atlanta Wednesday, a seemingly endless parade of beaming young men in jackets, ties and caps with assorted college logos dipped in and out of high school cafeterias and media centers.
Cars along Peachtree Road crawled along in a gridiron gridlock toward the ESPN Zone in Buckhead. Proud coaches and parents stood a little taller, relief spread across their faces.
That’s what national signing day looked like locally as the fruits of hard work and long-chased dreams became reality. Hundreds of high school athletes became friends with the dotted line, signing on for scholarships at institutions of higher learning from sea to shining sea.
“One down, one to go,” said Chevon Hill, as one of her two youngest children was getting his picture taken at the ESPN Zone. Kelton Hill Jr. — who’ll play quarterback at Georgia State after graduating from Lithia Springs — soaked in the moment.
“Yes, sir, it’s a great day,” said Hill, who passed for 2,300 yards and ran for 1,200 yards last season.
Meanwhile, his high school coach, Steve Horton, was posing with his other college-bound players. Depending on what school they’ll attend, Horton kept changing his T-shirt to reflect that school’s logo.
“I’ve got three shirts and one hat,” Horton said. “Next year, I told them they’re all going to go to the same school.”
The nation eavesdropped on what was going on in Buckhead when ESPN cut live to Carver-Atlanta’s Darren Myles Jr., holding LSU, Tennessee and Alabama hats. Even his father, the Carver coach, wasn’t privy to what would happen before the son placed the orange Tennessee cap on his head.
“I even told my dad that I was going to Alabama,” Myles said.
Meanwhile, signing day removed a weight from the shoulders of North Clayton coach Rodney Hackney, who had two players — Emmanuel Dieke (Georgia Tech) and Jeremy Ross (Austin Peay) — sign letters of intent.
“It’s stressful,” Hackney said. “I’m losing hair at the top of my head. … I’ve already had two or three coaches asking about my sophomore and junior classes. I’m like, ‘Let me get through this one.’ It’s getting harder to keep up.”
Down the road in the Fox Sports Grill at Atlantic Station, Buford coach Jess Simpson watched seven of his players sign scholarships and identified with Hackney.
“It’s a relief for college coaches. It’s a relief for high school players, and it’s a relief for high school coaches,” Simpson said. “It’s a grind.”
But for one day at least, nobody cared about the grind. Whooping it up seemed more in order to Dunwoody’s Treavor Scales as he and a dais full of his teammates celebrated their signings in the Fox Sports Grill.
Scales led an act of spontaneous glee, the team’s “Wildcat Pride” chant — something they do at every pep rally and after every victory.
“It’s a payoff for all the hard work myself and the members of the senior class have gone through,” said Scales, a running back who’s heading for Harvard. “It’s great to see it finally pay off.”
At Miller Grove High in DeKalb County, Wednesday’s signing day was the program’s first. Coach Jasper Jewell referred to the late-afternoon occasion as the “official signing” for four of his players sitting in front of an auditorium full of students and parents. But much earlier in the day, their paperwork had been faxed to Georgia Tech (for Stephen Hill), Middle Tennessee State (for Kenneth Gilstrap), Clark Atlanta (for Jasper Hanson) and Lane College in Tennessee (for Jacoby Blount).
Still it was an occasion for surprising honesty, as when Gilstrap admitted to the room that, as a youngster, his sister used to beat him up. And then he thanked her “because it made me tough.”
While Gilstrap made a show of choosing the Middle Tennessee hat over those of Western Kentucky and Jackson State, it was his teammate Stephen Hill who was one really torn — between Georgia Tech and Georgia. Jewell said if signing day had been Tuesday, “He probably would’ve been a Bulldog.” Instead, Hill reaffirmed his love for the Yellow Jackets.
A young woman presented him a clock bearing a Tech logo, telling him, “It even has the right school on it, so you can get to practice on time.”
Jewell might’ve danced, except for his surgically repaired left Achilles tendon. Doctors want him to stay off it for another four weeks.
“To me, it feels better than winning the state championship,” Jewell said, “even though I don’t know what that’s like yet.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Alabama, Georgia State, Tech, Tennessee, UGA
Comments