Faith Middle School students can get ready to grab a helmet, basketball, bat and glove, soccer ball, volleyball and a pair of running shoes.
After a successful experiment with the school’s basketball program this spring, Faith will join the Muscogee County School District in all sports, including basketball, football, baseball, soccer, volleyball and track and field.
“We ventured into Muscogee County with basketball to see how it would work and it worked very well,” Faith Athletic Director Cindy Givens said. “We went from one sport to all.”
Football, soccer and volleyball will take place in the fall semester while basketball, baseball and track and field will take place in the spring.
Faith has partnered with Child, Youth & School Services in order to make the athletic reformation possible. Givens said Faith will provide the players while CYSS will provide equipment and fields and work with the school district in scheduling.
Givens said the main purpose of the reformation was to not only prepare kids for tougher competition high school athletics but eventually give them a better opportunity to play at the collegiate level.
We needed them to play in a series of games that allows them to grow skill-wise and team-building wise so they know what’s going to happen in high school, so when they try out they can have a fair shot,” she said. “We are looking now to making good athletes. We are now breaking apart from just wanting to go out and just being physically active to participate in something. We’re trying to channel athleticism into a great team.”
That’s one of the reasons Spivey Green, an assistant coach for Fort Benning’s Amateur Athletic Union track and field program who has been coaching youth sports at Fort Benning for 24 years, said this is something Fort Benning youths have needed for a long time. Ultimately, he said, it helps high school programs and draws their interests.
“(Fort Benning) needs a feeder program to feed into the high school programs, which will make them more competitive,” Green said. “(The athletes) have been at a disadvantage.”
Green said the first hump the new athletic program will have to get over is a slow first year in which Faith players will have to adjust to higher-level competition.
“It takes losses to make you better,” he said. “People don’t understand that. It seems strange, but sometimes you get more out of a loss than you do a win.”
Givens said more sports and more games have grown interest from the Faith students.
“Your schedule goes from five or six games to 12 or 13,” she said. “When (the kids) learned of this, they were over-the-top excited. This is what they’ve been waiting for a very long time. Even though they know we’re not going to win every game, we know we’re always going to be competitive.”
Faith will also be changing its team colors from blue and gold to black and gold.
While the location of home games for most sports has yet to be announced, Dorrie Wagner, director of Youth Sports for CYSS, said the home football games will likely be played at Doughboy Stadium.
Wagner said adding the new Faith teams will not cost CYSS any extra money, nor will there be any cost to parents for their child to play on one of the teams.
“Right now, it’s looking like there are no registration fees to play the sport,” Wagner said. “There is no cost to parents to be a CYSS member or to play on a Faith team.”
The programs will adhere to under regulations set by the Muscogee County School District. With those regulations in mind, Givens said a player can be subject to athletic discipline if he or she fails to meet standards for attendance and grades.
“We have much stricter rules where academics, behavior and attendance are concerned,” Givens said. “If you make an F on your progress report, will that affect your playing? In the old world, no, in the new world, yes.” Each team will host a tryout before the season begins and players who do not make a roster will have the option to play for one of the CYSS teams not affiliated with Faith, with the exception of the Fort Benning Bengals youth football program.
“With football that won’t happen because registration for the Bengals will already be over, but with all the other sports they can fall back and play in our league,” Wagner said.
With the new rule allowing civilians to get on post with only a driver’s license and not having to obtain a visitor’s pass, Givens hopes more parents from opposing schools will be able to become familiar with Fort Benning as they come to watch their children play.
“That’s a huge thing for these parents,” Givens said. “Trying to get on post was difficult.” The biggest challenge of maintaining the new sports program, Givens said, will be dealing with incoming and outgoing students.
“We have a 40 percent mobility rate,” she said. “The likelihood that we will lose or gain a student is 100 percent. Somewhere along the line we will lose somebody and gain somebody. (Those students) will be lucky to get three (years) and most will only get one or two. With Dorrie’s help, we are going to give these kids the best we can give them.”
Givens said people interested in coaching a team should know that all sports, with the exception of basketball, do not come with a stipend for time spent coaching. A stipend cannot be paid in a sport not directly funded by the school, she said.
Wagner said coaching positions have been filled for boys and girls basketball, football and baseball. All other positions are open. Anyone interested in coaching should call Wagner at 706-545-1853. All students looking to tryout for a sport will need a sports physical.
