Rayvan Teague of Carrollton and Bob Christmas of North Hall, two of Georgia’s most successful high school football coaches for the past decade, made surprising departures last week while a three-time state championship coach, Steve Pardue, was hired Monday to return to the sidelines.
Teague, in his 30th year in public schools, said he would retire from coaching at age 51, an unusual move for a coach with his record. Teague was 127-25 in 12 seasons at Carrollton and reached the state finals in 2010 and 2012. He won a state title at Swainsboro in 2000 and was 220-69-1 for his career.
“My intentions are to retire at the end of this year and look into a possible second career,’’ Teague told The (Carrollton) Times-Georgian newspaper. “I don’t want to coach after here. I just think that after Carrollton, coaching would not be the same.’’
Christmas is returning to Jefferson Forest High in Virginia, where he led the program to state titles in 1992 and 1993. Christmas was 106-46 in 13 seasons at North Hall. He inherited a team that had gone 0-10 the season before and had never won a state playoff game. North Hall won four region titles and advanced to the state semifinals twice under Christmas.
Pardue, who won state titles at LaGrange in 2001, 2003 and 2004, will be East Coweta’s new coach. He replaces Clint Wade, who was 38-29 in six seasons. East Coweta has reached the state playoffs each season since 1997 but advanced only once (2012) since Danny Cronic’s retirement in 2007.
Pardue left LaGrange in 2011 to become an assistant at Kentucky under long-time friend Joker Phillips. Pardue was 161-45 at LaGrange.
Buck Cravey dies: John "Buck" Cravey, the only head football coach to win state championships in both the GHSA and GISA, died last week at 76. Cravey won 270 games, 17th-most in state history, according to the Georgia High School Football Historians Association. In 1969, he won the only state title in the history of Vidalia High, where he coached from 1967-1972 and 1975-1992. Cravey left Vidalia to coach at Briarwood Academy in Warrenton and then Pinewood Christian in Bellville in the Georgia Independent School Association. Pinewood won a state title in 1997.
All-star rosters set: Eagle's Landing Christian outfielder Dazmon Cameron and Columbus shortstop Alonzo Jones have been picked to play in the 2014 Under Armour All-America Game at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Aug. 16. Cameron, the son of former major league outfielder Mike Cameron, is viewed as a potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft. He hit over .400 with seven home runs on ELCA's Class A private-school state championship team last season. Jones, a junior, has been timed at 6.33 seconds in the 60-yard dash.
100 free throws?: Two girls basketball teams threatened a national record Saturday night when they attempted 100 free throws in one game. Brunswick defeated Tift County 79-67, but the outcome was a sidelight to a more unusual story. Tift County made 30 of 53 free-throw attempts while Brunswick made 32 of 47. There were 58 fouls called, but only two players fouled out.
The National Federation of State High School Associations record book lists only two other girls games with more than 100 free throws. In a 1996 game in Texas, Wolfe City (61) and Whitewright (53) attempted a record 114 in a game won by Whitewright, 67-66. In Brunswick-Tift game game, Brunswick guard Destiny Alston attempted the most free throws, making 14 of 20 and finishing with 33 points. Tift’s Alexis Johnson was 11 of 19 at the line and scored 28 points.
Crawford drops region schedule: Crawford County announced last week that it would play a non-region schedule in football. The Eagles have a state-ranked boys basketball team and won a state title three decades ago in that sport with Kenny Walker. But the school's 43-game football losing streak is the longest active skid in the state.
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