I have had many people tell me that really no solution exists to the issue of why only one of six public high schools can win more than 35 percent of their games and to me that's just sad. I don't think that's acceptable by any means but I really don't know if anything will be done about it. When I talked to coaches they did have some thoughts about things needing to be done. They are as follows.
1. Feeder systems for each high school. I had more than one coach tell me that the training to be a varsity football player and run the system they want to run does not start until they get those kids to high school. Not only did some of them question the coaching these younger kids were getting at the middle school level, but many times they had no idea how to run the offense or defense their high school team was running."I would love to see our rec league adopt something similar to what they do in Gwinnett, which is to have kids growing up playing with the kids they will play for in high school", said one coach in Macon. So on Saturdays the 7 year old Howard Huskies would be playing the 7 year old Rutland team."
Whatever the way they do it, something needs to be done to have some underclassmen ready to play at the varsity level when they walk in the door. If a middle school coach knows that most of the kids are going to end up at Howard, then teach them how to run the wing -t.
2. Hire local- I believe that one of the most important things that Bibb County can do is hire coaches that played at the school they are coaching at. The parents need to see a familiar face on the sideline and someone that they respect right away. Macon has had some extreme failures when trying to hire outside of the district and the biggest one of those in recent history was Larry Harold at Central. Harold was hired to replace Jessie Hicks, who had turned the Central program around, but Harold quickly killed the vibe of Central football and quietly left after just a year. They now have a Central guy at the school, as does Southwest and Northeast and I feel like that's a great start.But those guys have to bring the energy and recruit the middle schools for athletes.
3. I would be interested to know who exactly hires the football coaches. Does Bibb County AD Barney Hester have control over that or is it the school principal ? I will admit that I am not really sure but I believe that Hester , as the county AD, should have full power of the hiring of head coaches. I would also be interested to see if anyone actually gets fired from a head coaches job for losing ? The high school coaching profession has many important parts that includes making young kids grow into men, but winning games has got to be way up on the importance list and sometimes I am not sure if it is in Bibb County .
4. Change the district lines- I know it sounds impossible but I had 3 out of 5 coaches I talked to suggest it. I am not sure how that would work but it is obviously something to look at. I do not really understand why Macon has six high schools instead of four bigger high schools though and maybe someone can explain that to me.
5. The overall attitude of Bibb County- I know this may come as a shocker but Macon is not really a football town or at least not a high school football town. If two Macon teams are playing, the stadium will probably be half filled and if a Macon school is playing someone else, it is less than that. We had a few nights this year, such as the Jones County and Howard game, that Defore was almost packed. But six weeks later the stands were less than half packed for Howard and Upson Lee. I guess the obvious fact is that fans support winning programs and history says that Macon has not produced football programs that win. So here is a great idea. Don't complain about private schools stealing your players because kids (or parents for that matter) don't leave winning programs unless they aren't playing, and if they aren't playing you probably don't need them anyway.
I think Bibb County is trying to promote its product but they have a long way to go. Some of the people I talked to think Macon is an impossible place to win football games at a consistent level and that is why coaches such as Jessie Hicks left for Baldwin County, but Bibb County has to find a way to be better, even if it means starting over
I know I didn't give any surefire ways to turn the fortunes around, but hopefully I made a few eye-catching facts stick out just a bit
I think that your articles shine a light. I have always pondered the same thing. I remember going to a Westside playoff game a number of years ago. They were undefeated and ranked number one, playing Tucker. The Tucker stands were over flowing. We could have picked our seat, any seat, in the Westside stands. I was completely baffled at the lack of support that night. That was eye opening
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