Georgia's Speaker of the

House Tom Murphy (D-Bremen) has begun an effort to help

the Bremen High School football team do something that it

evidently can't do on its own - win football games.

The Bremen team normally holds its own against other

public high schools in its class but, when it comes to

playing against the few private schools that dot the

Georgia landscape, Bremen has had less success than it

would like. Speaker Murphy has had enough.

For nearly a hundred years,

high school students have competed on the gridiron

against each other and, for most of that time, there

wasn't even such a thing as a "class," such as

"A," "AA," AAA," or

"AAAA," which all has to do with the size of

the student body. Consequently, in the past, the large

schools usually whipped up on the smaller schools pretty

badly.

In Tennessee, during the

1964 season, large Dobyns-Bennett High School of

Kingsport demolished tiny Jellico High 89-0. Jellico

played Kingsport for the excitement of playing in a

large, filled-to-capacity stadium and for the generous

share of the ticket sales. For their part, the large

schools wanted to rack up victories.

In the days before

playoffs, high school championships were decided by the

votes of sports writers, coaches, or some other third

party. Everybody knew it was a flawed system but it was

the one in place. So, large schools would play about half

their games against "name" teams who were known

to be tough competitors and the rest against teams over

whom victory, and lopsided scores, were assured. It was

good for the polls.

Yet, in 1968, diminutive

Greeneville High School, on their home field, squeaked by

the mighty Dobyns-Bennett team by a score of 6-2 in a

game played in a torrential downpour. The rain was coming

down so hard the players couldn't see four feet in front

of them, the bands never got off the bus, and the mud was

thick and deep enough to totally stall any kind of

running game.

The Dobyns-Bennett team was

stymied but the overmatched, outclassed Greeneville team

took advantage of the terrible conditions. The only

touchdown was scored by a big lumbering defensive tackle

who picked a fumble up out of the mud and loped into the

end zone.

That game caused about as

much excitement in Greeneville as V-E Day! David could

beat Goliath on any given Friday night. That's what's so

great about high school football.

But, somewhere along the

way, the powers that be determined that the playing field

should be leveled a bit. The universal wisdom said that

schools of similar size should play against each other

and, once decreed, that's the way it has been in much of

America. Once the playing field was equalized, it became

a matter of who could coach the best, develop the best

players, devise the best system, and so on. Sometimes,

sheer grit, determination, and luck would win the day.

In 1989, in a Georgia Class

AAAA football game, the Newnan High School team was on

the march to the state playoffs. Newnan had been a

powerhouse for years and looked forward to an easy

season-ending game with Peachtree City's McIntosh High

School. The McIntosh Chiefs were 1-8 going into that

final game, with their only win being over a team that

would go 0-10 on the season.

Newnan took control of the

game and, at halftime, the Chiefs were down by a score of

18-7. Most on the McIntosh side would have been content

to see the game end right there, certain that Newnan

would roar out in the second half and humiliate the home

team.

Something happened,

however, in the Chiefs locker room. Call it inspiration,

personal pride, or a realization that there was nothing

left to lose. The McIntosh team returned to the field and

played like a group of athletes possessed.

Newnan maintained their

lead and their relaxed approach to this

"breather" of a game prior to playoff season.

game, it was too late. The hapless McIntosh Chiefs had

upset the powerful Newnan team 19-18 for the first and

only time in the school's history. That's what makes high

school football so great!

Speaker Murphy, however,

isn't content to let the boys and the coaches just play

the game. In the Speaker's view, the private schools,

like professional teams or colleges, recruit outside the

state and bring in the best from big old bad places like

New York to come down to the South to beat up on the

native sons. Never mind that, almost always, the state

champs are public schools, not private. (On the college

level, when's the last time Yale or Harvard won a

national championship? Public schools rule the roost.)

Nevertheless, Speaker

Murphy proposes to unlevel the playing field by requiring

the private schools to play in a class higher than they

really are. So, a tiny "A" private school would

have to compete in the much larger "AA" league.

It's almost funny, really.

Here is, arguably, the most powerful man in Georgia

outside the governor, spending an inordinate amount of

energy twisting the arms of reluctant legislators trying

to effect a change in the football ratings system for the

sole purpose (for so it appears to me) of having his

local high school lose fewer games to better-prepared,

better-coached teams who attend the same size schools.

It's a shame really. By his

actions, Speaker Murphy is telling his beloved Bremen

team that, without the intervention of the great state of

Georgia, they aren't good enough to compete on an equal

basis. The boys know better. They know that, on a given

Friday night, anybody can beat anybody else.

They should just be allowed

to play.

[David Epps

is rector of Christ the King Church which meets in

Peachtree City in the Carmichael-Hemperley building on

Ga. Highway 74, 10 a.m. Sundays. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at www.ChristTheKingCEC.com .]