Georgia high school sports fans have a lot to look forward to in the near – and distant – future, according to Kevin Giddens, GHSA associate director. Giddens was our guest on this week’s Next Take Georgia Podcast, and he talked about three GHSA sports he oversees: football; soccer; and one of the state’s fastest-growing and popular high school sports, bass fishing.
Bass Fishing
Giddens said bass fishing is right up there with e-sports and girls flag football among the fastest-growing sports in the GHSA, and it has grown into the largest high school state association-based bass fishing program in the country.
“We have around 150 schools now participating in bass fishing,” Giddens told us.
The GHSA bass fishing program is in its third season as a sanctioned sport. One qualifying tournament remains before the 2023 state championship, which will be held at Clarks Hill Lake at Wildwood Park on the Georgia-South Carolina border. The lake stretches over the four-county area of Lincoln, Columbia, Wilkes, and McDuffie.
“We have a total of four regional qualifying tournaments each bass fishing season, and so far this year, we have completed three of the four,” Giddens said.
He explained that approximately 500 anglers compete in each of the GHSA bass fishing qualifiers. Each boat goes out with four fishermen and one adult boat captain. But don’t take the “fishermen” label literally – the sport is co-ed and allows male and female students to fish alongside one another.
Soccer
The 2023 Georgia soccer regular season is winding down, with the playoffs set to begin in early April.
“We will set the playoff brackets on April 9, then the first round of the playoffs will start on April 11 and 12 and run through April 28, when the semifinals are played,” Giddens said.
He said the state soccer championships will kick off on May 2 at McEachern High School and Mercer University. The state finals will wrap up on May 5.
Football
The 2023 GHSA football season will see the return of the state finals to an indoor venue, with Mercedes-Benz Stadium set to once again host each classification’s state championships. But Giddens said there’s still a lot of work to be done between now and then.
“We have been working on setting the schedules for all member schools’ football programs, and it remains a tough road, especially with the more successful teams,” Giddens said, explaining that teams continue to struggle to fill out a full 10-game schedule.
“We had a few schools last season who just couldn’t find that 10th game, so they went with a nine-game regular season,” he said.
Reclassification and realignment have been among the most talked-about topics this offseason. Giddens explained that beginning with the 2024 season, the total number of classifications will be reduced by one, although there still will be a split for Class 1A.
“We will have six classifications, but Class 1A will still have their split, giving us seven state championships instead of the previous eight,” he explained.
Perhaps the best outcome of reclassification, realignment, and the reduction of one full class will be a more geographical-friendly alignment. Although the revamped classifications and regions are nowhere close to being decided upon, Giddens said there are some obvious outcomes to be expected.
“The projection is that this will help many schools’ geographical situation, and we will see the renewal of several natural rivalries,” Giddens explained, although he did concede that it isn’t going to fix everything.
“There will still be some outliers,” he said.
Giddens encouraged anyone wishing to learn more about the reclassification/realignment process (and any other news pertaining to the GHSA) to visit their website at GHSA.net.
