When Rodney Walker arrived

at Sandy Creek High as head football coach in spring of 1999, the Patriots

were still hurting from the the sting of another losing season.

Worse than finishing 2-8 the

previous fall, the school had to deal with the embarassment of giving

up an early lead and losing at home 23-20 to a Starr's Mill team

made up entirely of sophomores and freshmen.

It appeared Sandy Creek, isolated

in a rural corner of northwest Fayette County, was forever doomed as the

Rodney Dangerfield of local high schools.

But Walker, who arrived at

the Tyrone school after leading Peach County into 1998's AAA championship

game, knew respect was something earned, and it would take a community

of involved parents to make that happen.

On Friday, Sandy Creek hosts

Bainbridge in the first round of the state AAAA playoffs, boasting a 10-0

perfect record and 5th-place ranking in statewide polls. It has homefield

advantage through the run of the playoffs to the state title game, should

the Patriots keep winning.

Starr's Mill, which in

2000 became the first county school to go 10-0, finished the season 4-6.

Monday night, Walker and officers

with the Sandy Creek Booster Club shared their success story with the

Board of Education.

"After all my years in

coaching, we moved to Fayette County and I came across my 'family'

five years ago," said Walker, who boasts one of the best records

of any active Georgia coach. "We're part of a team. I'm

just proud to be a member of that family."

Gary Teal, president of the

Sandy Creek Boosters, said the organization recently paid off a $125,000

line of credit he took out personally to help fund a variety of upgrades,

including construction of a 7,000 square-foot multipurpose fieldhouse

facility.

"We like to say, 'We

took a dream and built it,'" said Teal of Sandy Creek's

successes. "We also took out a loan and paid it."

The school's booster club

has built a reputation that didn't exist before, said Teal, and the

payoff is newfound respect from the community and an overall better attitude

among the school's 1,300 students, the largest enrollment since opening

in 1991, board members were told. SAT scores at the school took a dramatic

leap last year after a steady decline, and Sandy Creek's Junior Air

Force ROTC program enrolls 10 percent of the student body.

"The one thing I hope

we've accomplished at Sandy Creek is that we made a better school,"

said Walker. "And we've made a community better."