Wednesday, November 19, 2003
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Wednesday, November 19, 2003 |
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Sandy Creek finding respect, excitement By J. FRANK LYNCH When Rodney Walker arrived at Sandy Creek High as head football coach in spring of 1999, the Patriots were still hurting from the the sting of another losing season. Worse than finishing 2-8 the previous fall, the school had to deal with the embarassment of giving up an early lead and losing at home 23-20 to a Starr’s Mill team made up entirely of sophomores and freshmen. It appeared Sandy Creek, isolated in a rural corner of northwest Fayette County, was forever doomed as the Rodney Dangerfield of local high schools. But Walker, who arrived at the Tyrone school after leading Peach County into 1998’s AAA championship game, knew respect was something earned, and it would take a community of involved parents to make that happen. On Friday, Sandy Creek hosts Bainbridge in the first round of the state AAAA playoffs, boasting a 10-0 perfect record and 5th-place ranking in statewide polls. It has homefield advantage through the run of the playoffs to the state title game, should the Patriots keep winning. Starr’s Mill, which in 2000 became the first county school to go 10-0, finished the season 4-6. Monday night, Walker and officers with the Sandy Creek Booster Club shared their success story with the Board of Education. “After all my years in coaching, we moved to Fayette County and I came across my ‘family’ five years ago,” said Walker, who boasts one of the best records of any active Georgia coach. “We’re part of a team. I’m just proud to be a member of that family.” Gary Teal, president of the Sandy Creek Boosters, said the organization recently paid off a $125,000 line of credit he took out personally to help fund a variety of upgrades, including construction of a 7,000 square-foot multipurpose fieldhouse facility. “We like to say, ‘We took a dream and built it,’” said Teal of Sandy Creek’s successes. “We also took out a loan and paid it.” The school’s booster club has built a reputation that didn’t exist before, said Teal, and the payoff is newfound respect from the community and an overall better attitude among the school’s 1,300 students, the largest enrollment since opening in 1991, board members were told. SAT scores at the school took a dramatic leap last year after a steady decline, and Sandy Creek’s Junior Air Force ROTC program enrolls 10 percent of the student body. “The one thing I hope we’ve accomplished at Sandy Creek is that we made a better school,” said Walker. “And we’ve made a community better.”
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