Damian Swann leads Grady against St. Pius X tonight. Photo by Jon Barash

This week’s matchup for GPB’s Friday Night Football will be the Grady Grey Knights taking on St. Pius X on the Golden Lions' home turf. Let us dig a little deeper to see what makes these schools special.

Grady High School was named after Henry W. Grady who was the editor of The Atlanta Constitution and an advocate of a “New South” in the post-Civil War era. Grady High has a long traditional history of producing leaders for our city, state, and nation. Grady has made it their mission to provide an excellent Public School education for each and every student. Grady houses the Atlanta Public School’s Communication Magnet, Health Science academy, Fine Arts academy, and the Travel and Tourism academy that offers instructions for all students of every academic proficiency levels. Grady also offers cross country for boys and girls, varsity and JV football, softball, volleyball, and co-ed track and field. Hey!!! Did You Know… That Grady High was named Georgia School of Excellence in 1991, 1995, and 2001? In addition, their Magnet School of Communications has consistently produced award-winning work in print and broadcast journalism, forensics, publishing, and the fine arts for the past 23 years. *

* http://srt5.atlantapublicschools.us/176020102194545587/site/default.asp

St. Pius Catholic High School first opened its doors in September of 1958 equipped with only a few classes and just enough desks and chairs to contain 400 students. Over 50 years later St. Pius has expanded its building and staff to accommodate the thousands of students that walk the halls daily. St. Pius offers their students the chance to participant in football, cheerleading, soccer, softball and many different student organizations such as the Chess Club, French Club, Math Club, Quiz Bowl, and many more. Hey!! Did You Know… That a freshman named Savannah Tully was selected as 1 of 400 state finalists in the Doodle 4 Google competition? The overall amount of competitive entries across the nation was over 33,000 and Savannah placed in the top 400! Congrats to Savannah, who actually joins a fellow schoolmate and the former 2008 State Finalist in Doodle 4 Google winner Jake Henderson for this outstanding honor.* Also, a special congratulations to Senior Phuong Ninh who was named one of the nation’s Outstanding Writers through the 2010 NCTE Achievement Awards in Writing program. Ninh was one of eight Georgia students selected for this award. **

* http://www.spx.org/HomeCongratulationsSavannahTullyselectedasfinaliston…
** http://www.spx.org/HomeSeniorPhuongNinhhasbeennamedoneofthenationsoutst…
Catch the Grey Knights take on the Lions LIVE on gpb.org/sports this Friday night at 7PM!TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!!