There is no question football is big in Georgia. The high school scene on Friday nights is always exciting and fans are starting to get excited about the Falcons’ season.
But college football seems to reign supreme, not because of the Bulldogs, the Jackets or any the number of big games that happen each year. It’s the number of schools that are starting a football program or bringing back football to their institution.
One school that has recently started a football program is Chattahoochee Technical College. Chattahoochee Tech is a two-year college that began playing football at a club level last season.
They recently held their first ever media day at the Marietta campus and Chattahoochee Tech president Dr. Sanford Chandler was excited about the students, faculty and media members attending the historic event.
“What a great day,” Dr. Chandler said as soon as he stepped on the podium. “Truly is a great day.”
Dr. Chandler started the media day talking about how the football team came about. He received a letter in 2009 from current head coach Tim Freeman about starting a football team at Chattahoochee Tech. But at that point, Chandler had too much going on to even think about football.
“I was in the middle of merging three colleges,” Dr. Chandler said. “I passed [the letter] along the athletic department. Didn’t have time to deal with it right then.”
But Freeman got a team going later that year and Chandler found out about it when the commissioner saw an article in a newspaper talking about the team getting into a fight.
That’s when Dr. Chandler talked to Freeman and asked why did he want to start a football team at Chattahoochee Tech? Freeman simply replied “I wanted to make a difference in young men’s lives.”
And that’s how the ball got rolling, last year was their first full season as a club team and it was a success. They finished the year at 4-4 and ranked No. 7 in the National Club Football Association Coaches Poll.
And this year, they start the season ranked No. 7 in the preseason polls and Freeman is looking forward to taking that next step which is winning the national title.
“This season, coming into the program we have 67 players,” Freeman said. “Our goal when we went out and recruited was to build a team from the ball out.”
That means they wanted to recruit some solid offensive and defensive lineman and work their way to the skill players. One of the players Freeman mentioned was OL Randy Holt from Dade County. Holt played in the Tennessee-Georgia All-Star game where he was named the MVP.
Another player Freeman mentioned was DE Marvon Danzie fomr Augusta who will help the anchor the defensive line.
“One of our things was to recruit locally first, because Georgia has some of the best high school football around,” Freeman added. “We feel if we can get our local guys first, then we can build a strong program.”
With a chance to win the national championship what’s next for a program that seems to be on the rise?
“At the end of the year, we are going to evaluate where we are as a program,” Freeman said. “We are going to get together and put our plan to go National JUCO.”
Chattahoochee Tech has grown tremendously in the last few years when it comes to enrollment. There are over 10,000 students in eight different campuses in the Atlanta area including a new campus that opened in Canton.
So this media day was to show the community not only the football team is doing some good things on and off the field, Chattahoochee Tech is growing each year and it’s time for Atlanta to take notice.
If you would like to know more about the football team such as their schedule and a roster of players, you can go to www.ChattahoocheeTech.edu/sports.
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