High school sports, don’t you ever change.
Granted, I know I’m saying that in a season where high school sports in Georgia, and across the country, are changing more drastically and rapidly than ever before.
When the Georgia High School Association green-lighted high school athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness last month, it ensured that high school sports in Georgia would be changed in a drastic way forever.
We’ve got so much to work through when it comes to making sure athletes, coaches, athletic directors, principals and parents have the right information, as well as the tools to navigate all the garbage information that’s already circulating in an attempt to swindle naive and opportunistic high school athletes.
We’ve got much work to do to continue ensuring that the private school-public school competition balance is equitable and that the playing field is as level as can be.
We’ve got much work to do to shore up the officiating shortage across all sports in Georgia.
But one thing we don’t have to work on is the passion that high school sports elicits. And it’s a passion you can’t find anywhere else except on the courts and playing fields of high school athletics.
Over the years, I’ve often said that high school sports are the last bastion of athletics that feature athletes playing and coaches coaching for the sheer love of the game — not the money. Not the prestige. Not the popularity or the big, national platform. Just sheer, raw passion that comes with doing what you love.
I’ll concede that I feel like that bastion is eroding steadily. But I’ll also say that last Friday reminded me that we still have a few shreds of that bastion to hold on to.
It started Friday evening as I struggled to keep up with my live social media updates during the North Augusta-Midland Valley football game that turned into an instant classic and probably ranks in my top five of best high school football games I’ve seen in the last 10 years.
Once Ashton Mazone stuck his big paw up and swatted Jack Stevens’ potential game-winning 41-yard field goal attempt to the ground, the celebration erupted and I could literally feel it in my chest.
While I was trying to use my phone’s voice recorder to capture the post game interviews, I kept getting text messages flashing across my screen. They were from coaches letting me know about two highly touted Augusta-area basketball prospects who were going to be making their college announcements in the coming weekend.
As I walked out to the parking lot to head home, I saw I had a few missed emails from coaches giving me the information I need to create our basketball season preview content. While I waited for the Midland Valley parking lot to clear out, I saw the social media glee that came from Aquinas football after knocking off previously undefeated Greene County.
It reminded me that we’re getting into the sweet spot of our sports calendar — that time of the year when sports offerings come to you in smorgasbord, buffet style.
The best of high school football with the start of high school basketball, with the conclusion of volleyball and softball championships while college football is hitting its home stretch. And we won’t even talk about the blitz of professional sports. The NBA and NHL getting started while the World Series is concluding.
And while I love it all, it’s the high school games that still get my blood pumping the most. Why? Because it hasn’t been completely corrupted just yet. Some may say that the NIL stuff is changing that notion in a hurry. But I don’t think it necessarily has to be that way. I’ll expound on that in my next column.
Yes, this is the time of year that makes me feel supremely fortunate to do what I do. And while some have big dreams of covering mega-platform sports, I will always find a sweet spot in the high school games.
The purity of it all, even with the new stuff coming down the pike, is still palpable. And even with the changes, it can still remain.
The next couple of months are sure to be fun for high school sports enthusiasts in the CSRA. Although we can find lots of things to wring our hands about in this era of amateur athletics, let’s instead choose to find, cherish and celebrate the good things.
What good things, you ask? The fact that even in this new, weird world of high school NIL, and a high school sports recruiting scene that’s starting to feel more like the NBA or NFL Draft’s little brother, you’ll still find more pure, undefiled, unadulterated passion for sport on the high school scene than you will anywhere else.
And that is what I hope and pray is something that will never change.
Gabriel Stovall is the sports editor of The Augusta Press. He can be reached at gabriel@theaugustapress.com.
