If you drive north from Atlanta on I-85, take the Hamilton Mill exit and turn left, then right on Sardis Church Road, you will soon see a state-of-the-art building that could double as a space station. Seckinger High School opened its doors in 2022. The school offers an Artificial Intelligence curriculum, and it looks like it.

Many of the students at Seckinger were skimmed from the roll at nearby Mill Creek, which had an enrollment approaching 4,000 students. In their inaugural football season, the Jaguars went 0-7 and were outscored 280-12. This, while the team at the school that they left, on the east side on I-85, won the state Class 7A championship.

Tony Lotti

Tony Lotti has plenty of experience getting new programs off the ground.

Credit: Sam Crenshaw

Enter Tony Lotti, who arrived at Seckinger this year seeking to shape a young program with a lot of needs at a new high school. It’s nothing new for the Jaguars head coach.

“That is the hard part about being a new school,” says Lotti. “It was true when I was at Union Grove in 2000 and at Woodland-Stockbridge in 2007, Everybody is beating up on you. I said that I was never going to go to another new school after Union Grove, and Woodland. I did some rebuilding at West Hall, then Apalachee. When this came along, I just felt like the Good Lord was steering me back there.”

Like most new programs, the Jaguars are really young. Lotti says there are 32 sophomores and 18 juniors on his roster. This season started just like last season, with the Jaguars losing their first five games. The coach was seeing improvement and his team flirted with a breakthrough in Week 4.

“We almost pulled off the upset against Shiloh,” exclaims Lotti. “I think MaxPreps had us 33-point underdogs. The kid from Shiloh came in and literally on the final play of the game made a 47-yard field goal to tie it and force overtime. Then we lost in overtime. I told the kids there is a reason they say that you never forget your first time, because it’s so hard to get. But just stay with the process, and keep believing... We finally got that first win Friday.”

Last week was Homecoming, that wonderful week of parades, pranks and pageants that drive most coaches up the wall. Question: How big can homecoming be at a school that is only one year old? Just sayin’. Maybe all the added noise was good for the young Jaguars and the coach could see that this Friday night would be different.

 “We came out on our heels, and (Oglethorpe County) got up 15-0, then we scored,” recalls Lotti. “The big turning point was Tavon Carson blocking a punt and we recovered on their 11-yard line. One play later we scored and got a two-point conversion to tie at 15. After that things started clicking on offense and the defense got some stops. I told the kids. ‘Look, you were down by two touchdowns, now you have proven to yourselves that you can come back, and it’s not going to be like last time.’”

Seckinger

Harrison Robinson (No. 4) had 139 yards rushing in the win and Jaimen Williams (No. 21) ran for 223 yards in the win.

Credit: Sam Crenshaw

The 381 rushing yards against Oglethorpe County was not like last time. Jaimen Williams ran for 223 yards, while Harrison Robinson, whose brother Cameron is a standout at Mill Creek, added 139 yards on the ground. Both Williams and Robinson are tenth graders and have already etched their names in the young school’s history book. As it turns out, that homecoming game will be one for the ages.

“I told them ‘You’re going to be part of a trivia question that will never change,’“ says Lotti. “There will only be one answer to the question: ‘Who did Seckinger get their first win over.’ That will always be that way. It was great to see some smiles on the kids’ faces.”

Smiles on the faces of the team, the students, faculty and community. I’m sure that for a day or two nobody really cared about what the school on the other side of I-85 was doing. It also allowed Lotti to check one of the boxes that was on list of goals upon his arrival at Seckinger.

“They brought me in back in January,” recalls Lotti. “That is when I officially got on campus. I couldn’t get my staff all in place until the summer. I spent a lot of time from January until spring ball sitting down with kids talking with them, getting to know them and letting them get to know me one-on-one. I wanted them to see what the passion was, what the belief was, and that it was about them and not me.“

But if the young team needed some extra inspiration they need look no further than their coach, who led Apalachee to the playoffs in 2021, his fourth season on that job. By season’s end Lotti was experiencing headaches and an MRI revealed multiple brain tumors. Lotti went to the University of North Carolina Medical Center for surgery. His recovery was complicated, but after missing the team’s spring and summer workouts, Lotti returned in time for the season.

Seckinger

The second-year Seckinger football program has shown an ability to come back from difficult situations.

Credit: Sam Crenshaw

Coaching while wearing a hockey helmet to protect his head, Lotti saw the Wildcats go 0-10. The Atlanta Falcons made Tony Lotti their high school coach of the year for 2022. While the scoreboard may have said one thing, the coach’s integrity, tenacity, perseverance and commitment to school and community said something else. It all happened at Apalachee, but Lotti hopes the message takes hold at Seckinger.

“I believe that it takes a village,” says Lotti. “I want them to know that is what we are trying to build, because life happens. There are kids in my program who have been through being homeless. We are trying to build that support system. So that when life hits them, they will have people who will rally around them and help them through it.”

This week there are no classes at Seckinger on Thursday and Friday, but the Jaguars do have a game Friday night against Heritage-Newnan. Lotti’s team is playing a non-region schedule this season. That means no postseason play but he will use it as an opportunity to plant seeds for the program’s future.

“So, we are playing this like Thanksgiving week and the playoffs,” says Lotti. “We do this with the expectation that this is what we will do on Thanksgiving. This is what we are aiming for going forward. We will come in and practice Thursday morning and we will get them home in time for Thanksgiving dinner. I told them that I have practiced on Thanksgiving before. There is nobody in school, just us. Everything that we do has a purpose to try and teach you, so that when we get into that position you will have that mindset about you.”

So this former Morrow Mustang builds the Seckinger program brick-by-brick, teaching lessons he hopes will benefit his players in the first – on the field and beyond. It was faith, family, the students and, most of all his high school coaching fraternity – that saw him and his family through a life-changing time. They are Friday night rivals who are lifelong friends after the final whistle blows. He wants his young Jaguars to know that the game can do the same thing for them.

“They were there for me,” recalls Lotti. “I will never forget that. Those relationships, it just means everything. I want these kids to not miss the greatest lesson that this sport will teach you ... It’s the relationships.”