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The heat index may be approaching 100, and it may be hard to believe, but football season kicks off this weekend in Milledgeville.
Included is the debut of Baldwin High Head Coach Kevin Patterson, who will take his team to Fort Valley on Saturday to take on defending state champ Perry. It's all part of the first annual Gridiron Classic, hosted by Fort Valley State. The revenue from all tickets purchased today or tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday) on BHS's GoFan page will go to the school.
Patterson takes over for Jesse Hicks, easily the winningest coach in BHS football history. In recent years, however, things gradually grew stale around the program, and apathy set in amongst the fans and the community. Attendance began to drop. Some of the longtime fans stopped going to the games. Excitement was lacking.
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Taking a look back at Coach Hicks' time at Baldwin
The BCSD administration team decided to make a change in the off-season, and that change was Patterson. Excitement among the student body apparently is back. Roughly 90 players came out for the team this year, including 40 freshmen, a whopping number of ninth graders for any high school program in Georgia, let alone a Class AAA team.
In the last few seasons, by comparison, Baldwin's roster hovered around 55-60 players.
"We'll dress out around 75 (players) on Saturday, but eventually we're hoping to (dress out) 90. We still have some young guys who need to prove that they can do the right things consistently and earn their jersey," Patterson said. "We have been recruiting our own building. If I walk by an athletic-looking kid in the hallway, I'll ask "why aren't you playing football?" Our players are doing the same thing – convincing their friends to come out. It's a situation where maybe they played a few years at the recreation department or in middle school, but for whatever reasons they stopped playing."
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Who is Kevin Patterson, BHS' new head football coach?
Saturday's season opener against Perry will be a non-region game, even though Baldwin and Perry had become region rivals in recent years. Baldwin is now playing in GHSA Class AAA, while Perry remains in AAAA. The last few Perry/Baldwin matchups haven't been a fair fight...
Following a pair of etremely tough non-region games to begin the season, the row to hoe for Baldwin will become much easier. In general, the row to hoe will become easier from here on out, as Baldwin bumps down to Class AAA and plays in the "East Georgia/Augusta Region," an area of the state not exactly known for playing great football.
