Private schools launch programs

Mike Hearon was playing quarterback, zipping the ball into the clutches of Westminster's football players.

He was also doing just as much rudimentary coaching. Every time a player caught a pass, Hearon found himself hollering the same thing: run up the field.

They haven't developed the instincts, Westminster's coach later explained, to follow football's most basic strategy: advance the ball toward the end zone. They were instead gravitating toward the middle, wasting steps and seconds.

"That will change the first time they run into a linebacker," Hearon said.

Westminster's players have plenty to learn as they approach the school's inaugural year of football. Along to aid their progress is Jeff Terrell, the team's offensive assistant who was the 2006 Ivy League Player of the Year as Princeton's quarterback. He was invited to training camp by two NFL teams.

Westminster and Augusta Prep, two of the largest private schools in the area, are both debuting football teams this year to stay ahead of upcoming changes by the private schools' state association. The Georgia Independent School Association is planning to move boys soccer to the spring in the next few years, said executive director Michael Drake, who called the move "inevitable."

When that happens, GISA schools without football would have only one fall boys sport to offer students and rally their communities around: cross country.

"As an ex-cross county coach, that's my favorite sport, but it's not a spectator sport," Drake said. "You're not going to have homecoming at a cross-country meet."

Drake said three of GISA's largest schools (Dominion Christian in Marietta is the other) are starting football programs this fall. He said all three are doing it "the right way."

"There have been times when we have had schools (start with a varsity team), and that has not been a good experience," Drake said. "We applaud them to start small."

While Augusta Prep made a big announcement last fall when it hired an outside coach with public-school league experience -- Harry Bacheller, from Atlanta's St. Pius X -- Westminster kept its plan internal. Its plan is also a bit more ambitious, at least initially.

Westminster will field a junior varsity team this year for its ninth and 10th graders and has already scheduled games with established area programs such as Edmund Burke and Augusta Christian, which competes in South Carolina's private schools league.

Westminster's middle school team will play at Augusta Prep on Sept. 11. Augusta Prep will not have a JV team this year, Bacheller said, because he said the numbers wouldn't work out in the final year of fall boys soccer at the school.

"We have a long way to go," said Bacheller, who has 30 kids set to play for his middle school team, almost double the 17 he expected. "Our motto is to get better every day."

At Westminster, Hearon said 47 boys, sixth through 10th grade, have come out for the teams. The running backs, wide receivers and quarterbacks meet every Tuesday during the summer to work on their skills, running pass-and-catch drills in the baseball outfield.

Hearon played football at North Alabama (he lettered in 1981-82) and is a member of Westminster's board of trustees. He has two children that attend the school.

He expects to have a six-man staff this fall to coach both the middle school and JV teams, including Terrell, whom he met through church at First Presbyterian.

Terrell, 24, spent the past two summers at NFL training camps in Kansas City and Dallas after a decorated career as Princeton's quarterback. While with the Chiefs, he played significantly in a preseason game against St. Louis before he was among the team's final cuts.

Terrell said it's difficult to make a living in football outside the NFL. The logic: NFL Europe no longer exists, he didn't want to live in Canada and didn't enjoy arena football, even though people told him it was kind to quarterbacks. ("It seemed like part of the game was missing," he said.) Coaching became a way for him to stay involved in football, and he cherished his first experience: helping coach his high school, University School in Hunting Valley, Ohio, just outside Cleveland.

"I love seeing kids get it," he said.

Terrell's wife, the former Lindsay Gossage, is attending medical school, and Terrell works in medical-device sales. Gossage's father, Matt, was headmaster at Westminster from 1987-94 and is now headmaster at the Cannon School, just outside Charlotte, N.C., in Concord.

Terrell one day last week worked through drills with three quarterbacks who attempted to mirror his left-handed mechanics. Beyond the family connections, Westminster appealed to Terrell because it is attempting to build a legacy, a new thing for its community to latch on to. Aware of the school's success in soccer (four state titles), he said the community will support a team in a sport most folks easily gravitate toward.

"It's fun to have a vision for something," he said. "This school will have enough athletes. We just need the support the soccer team gets. I think we'll be OK, because it's not too terribly difficult (to support) football, because we're in Georgia and we're in the United States."

Reach Matt Middleton at (706) 823-3425 or matt.middleton@augustachronicle.com.