Nine former Georgia players and eight from Georgia Tech are among the 30 selected for this year’s Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame inductions. Voting results among the hall’s 40 board members were released Wednesday morning.
From Georgia, Hutson Mason of Lassiter, Alec Ogletree of Newnan, David Greene of South Gwinnett, Leonard Pope of Americus and Thomas Davis of Randolph-Clay – all from the coach Mark Richt era – made the cut.
Other former Georgia players elected were Mount de Sales’ Ben Zambiasi and Cedartown’s Edgar Chandler, who played for Vince Dooley, and Wayne County’s Len Hauss and Fitzgerald’s Lauren Hargrove from the 1940s and 1950s. Each led their high school teams to state championships.
Headlining Georgia Tech’s contingent are Jonathan Dwyer of Kell and the late Demaryius Thomas of West Laurens, who were teammates on coach Paul Johnson’s 2009 ACC championship team.
Also from Tech are Thomas County Central’s Joe Burns from the 1990s, Thomson’s Jerry Mays and Cartersville’s Robert Lavette from the 1980s, Americus’s Kent Hill from the 1970s, Decatur’s Frank Broyles from the 1940s and Riverside Military’s Everett Strupper, the star runner of Tech’s 1917 national championship team. Broyles, better known as the College Football Hall of Famer for his time at Arkansas, was perhaps the state’s best three-sport high school athlete when he graduated in 1942. He chose a coaching career over professional football and basketball opportunities.
Another state school, Morris Brown, which shut down its football program in 2003, remarkably had three former players make it, all high school stars from the 1960s. They are Johnson-Savannah’s George Atkinson, Ballard-Hudson’s Tommy Hart and Hogansville’s Alfred Jenkins. Each had long NFL careers. Jenkins went on to become the Falcons’ all-time leading receiver as Steve Bartkowski’s favorite target.
Atkinson and Hart were among four selections who played in the Georgia Interscholastic Association, the governing body for African-American schools during segregation. The other two were quarterbacks Silas Jamison of Washington and Jack Pitts of Trinity in Decatur. Both led teams to state titles. Pitts, who signed with Michigan State in 1966, was called a catalyst for SEC football integration.
Others members of the 2024 class are LaGrange’s Tray Blackmon, Dacula’s Terry Harvey, Fulton’s David Rocker, Griffin’s Jessie Tuggle, Dalton’s Bill Mayo, Cedar Shoals’ Homer Jordan, Chamblee’s Andy Spiva and Roswell’s Jeff Bower.
Though pro and college accomplishments seem to boost players’ chances, their high school careers are primary. Twelve of this year’s 30 picks won high school state championships. Mason, Blackmon and Burns were were all-classification high school players of the year. Mason was the first Georgia high school quarterback to throw for more than 4,000 yards in a season.
Induction will take place Oct. 26 at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta. Score Atlanta, a sports marketing company, administers the high school hall of fame, which inducted a 45-player class in 2022 and a 40-player class in 2023.
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