Football Players Receive Awards

Piedmont Academy held its football banquet for its second consecutive state championship team last Thursday in the school’s gymnasium.

Over 200 people attended, including the school’s athletes, their families, and friends who had a tremendous amount to be proud of after winning a football state championship back-to-back and earning 26 straight victories.

Decorations included memorabilia from the season and poster-size collages of photographs.

Judy Nelson, Danny Camp, Melissa Harvey, Rebecca Bailey, Traci Brady, and April Allen assisted in the preparations for the banquet.

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Prior to the beginning of the banquet, a video of the season prepared by Judy Nelson was viewed by the attendees and the season highlight video was played continuously on a separate projector near the lobby.

A silent auction was held which included a team autographed football jersey #26, an autographed helmet and game ball, a framed aerial photograph of Cougar Field, and a framed team poster collage.

Earlier in the week, Balfour sales representative, Jeff Morgan, presented the team with a framed print including the 2010 and 2011 state team photos incorporated with a rendition of this year’s state ring. The school plans to display the print in the gym lobby.

Athletic Director Danny Camp welcomed everyone to the event and thanked dozens of people for being a part of “behind the scenes” for the football and cheerleading program. Dr. John Brown gave the invocation and everyone enjoyed their meal catered by Tillman’s Catering—Tom, Nita, Morgan, and Will Mack Tillman.

Strength and conditioning Coach Dan Funt gave an overview of the weight program the athletes are involved in and presented a special award to senior Seth Harvey for reaching the 1,000 pound mark in the “bigger, faster, stronger” program.

Cheerleading Coach Elizabeth Davis introduced her squad giving recognition to scholar athlete, junior Clare Maloney. Coach Davis gave kind and sincere remarks to each cheerleader as well as saying her good-byes to the cheerleading squad’s seniors, Leigh Hicks, Briana Bailey, and Amy Anuszcyk.

Parent, Rebecca Bailey, prepared a video for the group showing highlights of the season with video and audio. One song featured was “East Bound and Down” reworked by her relative personalizing the words of the song to fit the program.

Coach Rhett Farmer introduced his football team and had heartfelt and compassionate statements towards each individual player. Like last year, individual awards were not issued since he and his coaching staff felt it took every member of the team to win a state championship. Freshman Hank Strickland was honored with the scholar athlete award for having the highest grade point average on the team.

Coach Farmer recognized GISA All-Region members, freshman Gaven Edge, juniors Peter Lawson and Nick Dimsdale, seniors Zach Benjamin, Tyler Cullum, Justin Wilson, Jakey Dunagan, Austin Corley, Seth Harvey, and Daniel Leinweber. All-Region honorable mention was awarded to Hank Strickland.

GISA All State members included Lawson, Benjamin, Dunagan, S. Harvey, and Leinweber. All-State honorable mention went to seniors Wilson and Corley

Lawson was honored in December by receiving the Macon Telegraph GISA Player of the Year for Class A, AA, and AAA. Lawson, Benjamin, Harvey, and Leinweber received the Macon Telegraph first team GISA All Middle Georgia team and Dunagan and Corley received second team GISA All Middle Georgia team.

Members of the GISA All-Star game held in December at Mount De Sales in Macon included Benjamin, Corley, Harvey, and Leinweber. Dunagan and Wilson were invited to participate, as well, but had a schedule conflict with basketball.

All participants in the program received from the Cougar Club a participant certificate, a plaque with the state team photo and engraved team information, letter jacket patches, copies of videos, and some members received their letter jacket.

The state championship rings, designed by Balfour, are expected to arrive at the school by the end of February. Overall, everyone agreed it was a great banquet and an extremely memorable season.