Today’s interviewee is Trinity Christian coach Kenny Dallas, whose team defeated third-ranked Fellowship Christian 41-27 last week in the Class A Private quarterfinals. Trinity Christian is in the semifinals for the first time in the Georgia High School Association, which the Sharpsburg private school joined in 2018. Dallas, in his fourth season as Trinity’s coach, previously coached at Landmark Christian, which he led to six straight region titles from 2002 to 2007.
Kenny Dallas, Trinity Christian head coach
1. Fellowship had won every game by more than 20 points, and you were a big underdog to most. What did you do so well in the game that allowed you to control it, getting up 41-13 in the third quarter? “First of all, let me say that I have the utmost respect for Coach [Al] Morrell and Fellowship Christian. If I understand correctly, their football program over the last four years has won over 40 games and has made the Elite 8 three of the last four seasons. I told my team last week that they had truly earned the right to get to play against a great program.
“That said, I believe our young men and our program are growing tremendously in terms of mental toughness. People talk all the time about the importance of physical toughness - how fast can you run, how high can you jump, how strong you are. All of that is important, but scripture says, ‘As a man thinks, so is he.’ We define mental toughness as simply the ability to ‘win the next snap.’ It is the ability to forget whatever good or bad happened the snap before and put your complete/total focus on the current snap. We stress to our young men that we cannot focus on ‘winning the game.’ All we can do is ‘win the next snap.’ I think our young men did a tremendous job in having tunnel vision and focusing the best they could on simply ‘winning the next snap’ against an outstanding team.
“From a physical standpoint in terms of our preparation, every coach I talked to about Fellowship the first thing they mentioned was their tremendous offensive tempo. We made a decision that we would tremendously limit the amount of defensive calls that we would make to ensure we were ready for every snap. The week of preparation for them, we used two offensive scout groups rapid-firing plays at our defense literally as fast as we could possibly run them. Our offensive staff did an incredible job with our offensive scout teams having them run plays at us at a tempo that was much faster than we would see Friday night.”
2. Your team is peaking. Why are you playing so well now? “This year has been a tremendous challenge for all coaches trying to manage the COVID situation from week to week. But this year has been especially challenging for us in terms of the number of injuries we have had through the year. The injuries have been especially difficult for us in terms of our wide receivers, and we also lost our starting quarterback for about a month. We only have two senior starters on this team, so when we had an injury, we got even younger. All that said, I think fighting through all those injuries made us play through a lot of adversity, and most coaches would tell you that adversity either breaks or builds a team. We were able to stay together, win some close games and finish the season 8-2. (I told my wife it felt more like a 2-8 regular season.) By the first week of the playoffs, we got several guys back on offense and were probably more healthy than we had been all year. Over the last three weeks in the playoffs, our offense has averaged 48 points per game and almost 400 yards of offense. I am extremely proud of our incredible football staff, led by OC Lance Duncan and DC Roby Ross, for guiding our boys to find strength and unity through weeks of adversity.”
3. How has the school and football community reacted to this win and to hosting a state semifinal Friday? “We have outstanding support inside our school and our community in general. Our stadium is packed and loud every Friday night. We are a single-A program, but our atmosphere on Friday nights in Sharpsburg really is second-to-none. We are a very young school - only 11 graduating classes, and this is our third year in GHSA - but our football, basketball, baseball and even girls soccer programs have all been ranked in the top 10 in the state over the last couple of years. That said, what I love most about Trinity is that our school and administration are not only 100 percent committed to winning on the field, but they are just as committed to win off the field. Our school and administration understands that every one of our boys may not end up college football players, but every one of them will be husbands, daddies and leaders in their community. Our school and community is an incredible 12th man on Friday nights, but they are just as committed to seeing our boys become Godly men who will one day be leaders in their homes and communities.”
4. Many high school football fans don’t know much about Trinity Christian, partly because the school is relatively new to the GHSA. What’s the history of the school and its football team? “Trinity is a private Christian school in Coweta County whose mission is to honor the Lord in preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s world. We have only had 11 graduating classes, but we currently have about 1,300 students in K-12th grade. Over the last few years, Trinity has built some incredible facilities - new high school, weight room, locker rooms, turfed field, etc. I have been blessed to serve at Trinity for four seasons. In that time we have transitioned from the GISA to the GHSA. In 2017 we lost in the GISA state championship, in 2018 we went 8-4 in first year in GHSA, in 2019 we went 7-4, and this year currently 11-2 in the final four. Our desire is to build a football program that competes for championships on the field and challenges young men toward Godly manhood off the field. The best way to get to know Trinity Christian is to come out this Friday night. All are welcome.”
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