King’s Ridge Christian and Pace Academy played a football game between undefeated teams Friday night in Alpharetta while the rest of the state must have yawned.
To most, these private schools are still toddlers when it comes to football, just three years into having varsity teams.
King’s Ridge, best known perhaps for its chairman of the board, former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz, is a nine-year-old school that spent its first six years in an old grocery store. So it’s been patient, until maybe recently.
Since 2007, when the school moved onto a 70-acre campus near north Fulton County’s horse country, the football program has installed an artificial-turf field and put in a $40,000 weight room. It has a press box and bleachers that seat 2,000.
It didn’t help Friday, as Pace won 37-7, but this has to be one of the nicest football facilities in the state — per capita. King’s Ridge has only 107 high school students and 24 football players
“I’m seeing the stuff that it takes to be successful,’’ said King’s Ridge coach Jeff Pickren. “If schools are willing to do those things, they can be successful. There’s no big secret to that formula. That’s why Wesleyan and Holy Innocents’ and schools like that have been successful. They’ve got a commitment from their school and community.’’
Most private schools aren’t feared in Class A football, but they dominate almost everything else that keeps score. In the all-sports standings of the Georgia Athletic Directors Association, only one public school finished in the top 10 in Class A for 2009-10. That was Bremen, at No. 7.
In 2000, there were only two football-playing private schools in Class A. Now, there are 18.
Only one of them, Wesleyan in 2008, has won a state championship in football, but one wonders if that wasn’t an omen.
It’s not just new private schools where football is taking hold. Pace Academy, now 4-0, has been a Buckhead fixture for 52 years, but it wasn’t until five years ago that it hired Matt Hall from a private school in New Jersey to get football started.
Though Pace and King’s Ridge played their first varsity games in 2008, Pace began sooner with an eighth-grade team of 20 players in 2006. Only two had ever played football.
Now, the program has closer to 80 players and a few college prospects, including Josh Swan, a wide receiver who is being recruited in two sports. He was the Region 5-A basketball player of the year as a junior.
“We put this five-year benchmark to see where we are, and we’re where we wanted to be,’’ Hall said. “It’s going to take even five more years before we realistically can expect to be competitive on the state level. It will be when we get those kids in the lower school who are now growing up coming to the games.’’
That’s the big idea anyway — getting the kids and families to the games in the name of school spirit.
At King’s Ridge, which played in the Georgia Independent School Association last year, those $100,000 bleachers were nearly full Friday. Dozens of kids were running around in a grass field behind the stadium, playing their own games, and some of the little ones took it on the real field at halftime. Artificial turf is made to last.
“Football is such a big thing in the state of Georgia,’’ Pickren said. “Friday night is not just a football game. It’s a community event. A lot of private schools see that football generates excitement. With this being our first year in the GHSA and having a successful start, it’s brought a great deal of publicity to our school.’’
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