When Allatoona High School opened in 2008 they started the Buccaneers football program.  Two years later when the Bucs played their first varsity season, Coach Gary Varner’s team made the state playoffs and finished with an 8-3 record.  In the five seasons since, Allatoona has had two quarter-final finishes, a semi-final finish last season and now here in 2015 will play Glynn Academy for the GHSA AAAAA State Championship Friday night 8:00 p.m. on GPB.  That’s what you call instant success.  In six years of varsity football the Buccaneers are 64-12.

It’s taken Glynn Academy a little longer.  The Brunswick school didn’t start playing football until 125 yearsafter it opened.  Glynn Academy is the sixth oldest school in the United States and second oldest in the south.  The school was chartered by an act of the General Assembly on February 1, 1788.  That was not only long before there was a Georgia Dome but long before there was an Atlanta to build it in.

With probably the coolest nickname in Georgia High School Football…I challenge you to convince me there’s something cooler than Red Terrors…Glynn Academy started playing football in 1913.  Success did not soon follow.  GA had some good teams back in the leather-helmet days but since the state playoff era began in Georgia in 1948, the Red Terrors have one state championship in 1964.  Until last season Glynn Academy had not advanced beyond two rounds of playoffs in 49 years.  The Red Terrors still haven’t won a region championship since 1972 and arrive at the Georgia Dome as the #2 seed out of Region 3-AAAAA.

There are two names you need to know when you watch the AAAAA State Championship Game on GPB.  Rocky Hidalgo and Deejay Dallas.  Rocky is the head coach who left Walton for the Georgia coast and turned this forgotten program into a state championship contender. 

Coach Hidalgo led Walton to the 2011 State Championship Game and now four years later he’s got the Red Terrors (I just like saying it) playing in the Finals.  What he did at Walton was great.  But it is Walton and one of the top high schools in the country.  You have resources there.  What he’s done at GA is phenomenal and cements him as one of the best coaches in the state.  He says one of the great things about Glynn Academy is the support the program gets from all walks of life…from those who live on the beach at Sea Island…to those who have significantly less.

Deejay Dallas is the other name to know.  He’s the 247 Sports Composite three-star junior athlete committed to Georgia that Coach Hidalgo decided to stick at quarterback after the Red Terrors (I said it again) were shut-out by Coffee 22-0 and were 2-2 on the season.  Glynn Academy has won 10 straight games since.  The question isn’t what does Deejay do?  The question is what doesn’t he do?

The story for Allatoona is a good one too.  Coach Varner was in the Navy working on nuclear reactors on a cruiser when he decided five years of service was enough and wanted to coach high school football.  He landed as an assistant at Pebblebrook and then at start-up Kell (where a lot of what he learned he would later apply at Allatoona).  From there he became the OC at Roswell working for Tim McFarlin when the Hornets were 2006 state co-champions.  As fate would have it, McFarlin’s Blessed Trinity will be on the field Friday playing for the AAA State Title Game right before Varner’s Buccaneers take the field for the AAAAA Final.

The young Buccaneers program boasts its first two Division-1 prospects this season but neither one may play in this game.  We know that three-star RB Russell Halimon, who’s committed to Arizona, won’t play.  He unfortunately tore his ACL in Allatoona’s first round playoff win.  The Bucs’ three-star TE Turner Cockrell, who is committed to Vandy, injured his ankle badly last week in the semi-finals vs. Northgate and he might not be able to play.  Despite all that, the Bucs are still standing and arrive with a 13-game winning streak.

So we’ll have a fun AAAAA Final.  New storylines.  New champion.  And dreams will be realized…no matter how long…or short…they have been in the making.