The High School Female/Male Scholarship Award will be presented to a senior who has represented his/her sport(s) in both performance and leadership. Each winner will receive a $1000.00 scholarship award.

Please complete and mail the following nomination form with one letter of recommendation attached to the form.

The scholarship application must be returned no later than February 10, 2015.   All applications after that date will not be considered.  Nominees include one senior female athlete and one senior male athlete.

There are the Mannings in the NFL- Archie, Peyton, and Eli- all players/formers players in the league. There are the Bowdens in college football- Bobby, Tommy, Terry, and Jeff- all coaches at the Division I level. Then, there are the Shaws- Lee, Jaybo, Connor, and Anna Kate- who have put a stamp on high school sports in Georgia for nearly three decades.

Patriarch Lee played for Rabun County High School from 1982-1985 and was an Assistant Coach with the Wildcats before going to Flowery Branch High School in 2002 to take over as Head Coach. Lee is currently Head Coach / Athletic Director at Rabun County. Both Jaybo (the eldest son) and Connor played Quarterback at Flowery Branch High. Jaybo went on to play under center at Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern, then got his coaching start at Rabun County (helping guide the team to its first playoff berth since 1992 as the Quarterbacks Coach), and recently snagged the role of Wide Receiver Coach at Western Carolina University. Connor starred at the University of South Carolina, where he amassed the best record for a QB in Gamecocks history (27-5 as a starter, 17-0 at home). Connor is currently part of the practice squad with the surging Cleveland Browns. And, Coach Shaw even was converted to WR while at WCU. So, the family is definitely an offensive-minded one! And, not to be outdone, daughter Anna Kate is a dual-sport star in Tennis and Cross Country at Georgia Southwestern University.

The tradition of all sports, all the time continues this weekend, particularly in football where Lee and Jaybo both have key conference matchups and the Browns look to continue its surprising success against Jacksonville. But, no matchup may be as critical as Lee's Rabun County team taking on rival Union County. The #Team11 Game of the Week Nominee is a game that could determine the winner of Region 8 AA.

Rabun County S Charlie Woerner (who also sees time at RB and WR) and LB Tucker Williams have been dominant on defense. But, they'll have their hands full with Union County QB Joseph Mancuso and RB/LB Chase Barnett. When asked what the keys are to handling the Panthers' offensive attack, Coach Shaw said "First of all, we know we still have Washington-Wilkes and Greene County. So, by no means does a win against Union County guarantee anything but knocking off an undefeated. They are leading the state in points per game average. And, Mancuso reminds me of (former Flowery Branch QB) Kanler Coker. Mancuso is surrounded by mature receivers and we have to figure out how to slow them down, because I don't know that you can stop them. They play sound defense. And, Barnett is also a stud who makes a lot of tackles. On paper we don't match up; but, we do have Woerner and Williams. I hope we play as a team". Read more...

McDONOUGH - Longtime coach and high school athletic director Chuck Miller was recently awarded another feather to stick in his cap full of athletic accolades.

The National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association selected the former Henry County boys basketball coach and athletic director for induction into the Georgia Athletic Directors Hall of Fame.

For a coach and athletic director who's garnered several awards and recognitions, this latest achievement probably isn't a surprise to those who are acquainted with Miller's resume.

But Miller said the news caught him a bit off guard, and puts him in rarefied air as it relates to the state's coaches and athletic directors.

"It was quite unexpected," Miller said. "I was very, very fortunate to be put into the Georgia coaches selected hall of fame. I think with these two honors, there's not been three of us that have been selected for both."

Miller said he believes former longtime Northeast-Macon girls basketball coach Alvin Copeland and legendary football coach and administrator Corky Kell are the only others to have received both the coaches and athletic directors awards.

Miller accumulated 861 victories while coaching boys and girls high school basketball on a journey that took him through Woodbury, Milner, Monticello and Cartersville high schools before landing in Henry County High.

He spent the last 27 years of his career coaching at McDonough's oldest high school, including his last four seasons as an assistant coach on the Ola boys basketball teams his son Curt Miller coached.

The elder Miller said he was actually informed of the distinction by Decatur athletic director Carter Wilson. Read more...

Every hit counts. Every hit to the head can be one step closer to a breakdown in the brain. But for many in today's sports world, we wait until the damage is already done, intervening with a concussion protocol only after the athlete shows obvious concussion symptoms.

Every team should have a concussion management protocol in place addressing compliant education, baseline testing, sideline assessment tools, symptom tracking and return-to-play guidance. This should be a standard in sports. But, I believe an even higher standard is coming. Every contact sports team should embrace new technology that tracks the force and frequency of head hits using impact sensors.

Here are four ways impact sensors, using accelerometer technology, can complement a concussion management protocol:

1. Measuring the Impacts

Using impact sensors allows you to measure the collision and rotational forces that may be sufficient to cause concussion injury. Although there is variability among athletes and their vulnerability to concussion injury, the ability to gauge the impact can alert responsible sideline personnel when a player may have sustained a serious hit to the head, and may need attention.

Further research is necessary to identify the threshold level of force to be concerned about, whether it's 50G, 80G, 100G and considering the athlete's age.

Integrating impact sensors into your concussion management protocol gives you a green light to pull a player who sustains a hit above your established threshold for sideline assessment. If the athlete passes under medical supervision, then they may return to practice or gameplay under a watchful eye, since signs of concussion may be delayed. If signs of concussion are present, the player is removed and appropriate management protocol should be applied.

2. Counting Collisions

From a neurological perspective, it's the sub-concussive hits that scare me. We don't see them. Players don't know them. Coaches coach despite them. There is mounting evidence that sub-concussive hits may cumulatively contribute to brain injury, and decreased performance on neuropsychological tests. Furthermore, increasing numbers of cases of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) are being reported in athletes playing contact sports, who never had a "documented" concussion.

There is now a growing acceptance of the concept of the Hit Count®, a term coined by Sports Legacy Institute (SLI). By counting and measuring the velocity of hits sustained to the head, we gain valuable data that can lead to preventing concussions and further brain damage.

Think of tracking hits and measuring impact velocity like baseball pitchers count their pitches. The more pitches, the greater risk of loss of control and potential injury. Likewise, the more head hits an athlete sustains, the greater the risk of short- and long-term consequences of repetitive brain trauma. Like the pitch count, impact sensors can identify how often athletes sustain possible sub-concussive hits.

I suggest impact sensors count the number of hits an athlete sustains during a day, week, month or season, so athletic trainers can better identify those at higher risk of concussion injury. Each team can establish a threshold before implementing their concussion protocol, and repeating baseline testing to determine if there is impairment over baseline. If so, it would send the athlete to relative rest and into the recovery progressive exertion process, with daily symptom tracking. Read more...

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Sincerely,

Mike Singletary
President

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