Claxton this week is playing its final regular-season game at the Pecan Grove, a 76-year-old stadium that is one of Georgia’s most charming and unusual venues.
The stadium was built on a pecan grove, and trees rise above the bleachers on both sides. Six pecan trees are growing up through the concrete stands on the home side. The stadium sits on a neighborhood street a half mile from the school and is officially known as Bell Memorial Field, named after a former football captain killed in the Korean War.
WTOC-TV in Savannah captured the glory of the stadium in a preseason feature.
“You can tell people who know the stadium well,” former Claxton athletic director and coach Mark Stroud told the TV station. “They’ll get here early, and they’ll find their shade spot. They’ll get the tree.”
The trees are beginning to pose a danger, however, and the cost to repair damaged bleachers is more than the school can take on. The high school’s flag football team and soccer teams will continue to play there. Specific plans for a new field have not been announced.
Claxton has clinched a playoff berth and is playing for third place in Region 3-A Division I Friday against Bryan County.
John Milledge can tie state-record streak
John Milledge Academy, a Georgia Independent Athletic Association team, has won 46 consecutive games, one short of Buford’s state record set in 2000-03, and can tie the mark Friday night with a road victory against Tattnall Square in Macon.
John Milledge has outscored its opponents 443-67 but is only an 11-point favorite this week, according to the computer Maxwell Ratings. Tattnall is one of the stronger of more than a dozen GHSA schools that jumped to the GIAA this year. Both teams are 3-0 in league play, and the winner will be the District 6-4A/3A champion.
“It’s a huge game for us,” JMA coach J.T. Wall told GHSF Daily. “As far as the record, that just puts one more feather in our cap if we can pull it off. I don’t think it’s more pressure. They’ve gone out each week and done what they needed to do, and I expect them to do the same this week.”
GHSA multiplier shows mixed results so far
During reclassification this offseason, the GHSA applied a 3.0 multiplier to out-of-zone students to push city and private schools, which win more championships in all sports, into higher classes. How is it working?
Seven private schools are ranked in the top 10 of today’s GHSF Daily composite poll compared to 15 in the 2021 season-ending composite. That suggests that abolishing the public-private split in Class A and using the multiplier to disperse the smaller privates has been effective.
For city schools, however, there’s little evidence of change. Nine city schools are ranked among the composite’s top 10 teams compared to only seven in the final 2021 poll.
There are only 20 city schools in the state and nearly half are ranked, while 17.8% of other public-school football teams are ranked in a top 10.
Good hires are among season’s best stories
The regular season’s best storyline, something that doesn’t ordinarily happen so glaringly, is probably the success of first-year coaches. Twelve of the 40 GHSA coaches on today’s GHSF Daily Improvement Tracker are in their first seasons at their schools.
In order of their team’s improvement as measured by the computer Maxwell Ratings, those 12 coaches are Justin Rogers of Thomas County Central, Heath Webb of Lumpkin County, Jonathan Gess of Hebron Christian, Marc Beach of Lambert, Jaybo Shaw of Wayne County, Jeremy Edwards of Houston County, Sean Calhoun of Colquitt County, Josh Niblett of Gainesville, Keith Hatcher of ACE Charter, Charley Waters of Jenkins County, Todd Wofford of Meadowcreek and Terrance Banks of Greene County.
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