After yearslong build, Mt. Bethel Christian readies for milestone

Mt. Bethel Christian’s final tuneup before heading into the first region football schedule in school history was postponed by lightning Friday afternoon, but the bad weather didn’t temper the enthusiasm of one of the GHSA’s youngest programs looking to take a big next step.

The Eagles’ home game against Towers went into a delay when lightning struck in the area at about 4:15 p.m., just after the coin flip but before the kickoff. After waiting for more than an hour, the game was postponed and will be played Monday at Buck Godfrey Stadium in DeKalb County.

Starting a game after 5:30 p.m. on a field with no lights, as a courtesy to neighbors, was not a realistic possibility. That’s just one of the growing pains for a program that did not play a varsity game until 2024.

After facing Towers, the Eagles will travel to Mount Vernon on Friday for the first GHSA region game in program history. Mt. Bethel competes in Region 9-2A with King’s Ridge Christian, Mount Paran Christian, Mount Pisgah Christian, Mount Vernon, Walker and Fellowship Christian, which is ranked No. 9 in Class 4A-2A Private this week. Later this season, the Eagles will play their first playoff game, as all of the private schools in Class 2A through 4A qualify for the postseason.

“We’ve been playing a lot of out-of-state teams, even across oceans when we went to Puerto Rico (for a scrimmage),” senior Ford Whyte said. “So I think playing teams here in Georgia will be a totally different kind of football because Georgia football is some of the best in the country. Playing Mount Vernon and Fellowship Christian and teams like that will be fun for us.”

Added senior Wesley Dunlop: “We play schools like Fellowship and Mount Paran in other sports, so now you get to add football and it’s fun because you’ve got that rivalry there that makes the games more exciting and mean more.”

Mt. Bethel’s football program was started in 2021 with fifth- and sixth-graders playing flag football. After changing to tackle football the following year, Mt. Bethel built up to playing a mixed junior varsity/varsity schedule by 2024 and played a 10-game nonregion varsity schedule in 2025. The Eagles are 16-2 all-time in varsity games but have played just three against GHSA teams.

“When we started football at Mt. Bethel, we knew we wanted to build the program the right way rather than rushing into varsity competition, said Cal Boyd, the school’s athletic director and boys basketball coach. “We developed a five-year plan that would gradually introduce our students to the sport and prepare them for the eventual move to GHSA football.”

Mt. Bethel opened the Upper School in 2014 with nine freshmen and had its first graduating class of 12 students in 2018. Boyd said the school has about 230 students in the ninth through 12th grades, with a goal of eventually building to a cap of 400.

Construction is everywhere on the Upper School campus, which is located in east Cobb County within 5 miles of public high schools Sprayberry, Pope, Walton and Wheeler. Eventually, the Middle and Lower schools will move to the same campus.

The school hopes to one day build a field with lights on a different part of the campus.

In the meantime, Mt. Bethel is making the most of the situation. For example, for their game against King’s Ridge on Saturday, Oct. 31, the Eagles are planning a noon kickoff to be followed by the showing of the Georgia-Florida game on the stadium’s scoreboard, complete with a community tailgate event.

“Friday nights are about much more than what happens between the lines,” Boyd said. “They give our students, families, alumni and supporters an opportunity to come together and experience the sense of community that makes Mt. Bethel so special. We believe athletics are a powerful vehicle for teaching character, perseverance, selflessness and servant leadership, and football gives our coaches another opportunity to invest in the lives of our young men.”