Alpharetta-Roswell Herald Football Preview 2023

Fulton athletics chief heads to Dalton County

By MCCLAIN BAXLEY newsroom@appenmedia.com

FULTON COUNTY, Ga

— After more than 100 state championships, one national championship, countless college signees and 11 years of building a foundation, Fulton County Schools

Athletic Director Steven Craft is stepping away.

“I think it’s time for someone else to have an opportunity,” he said. “It excites me to have a new challenge. I feel like we have accomplished so much in Fulton County in the last 11 years.”

Craft has held the post since 2012 and is set to begin April 10 as assistant superintendent for Dalton County Public Schools. He’ll go from overseeing 16 athletic departments to a school system that has two high schools. But it’ll be an exciting change for someone whose life has been ingrained in high school athletics for more than 20 years.

During his time heading Fulton County athletics, there have been new schools founded, championships won and hiring changes — and Craft has been on hand for it all.

“I think Fulton County has become the standard,” Craft said. “When you look at what we’ve done top to bottom, north to south, there isn’t a sport that we’ve not been at the top of the mountain. It shows that we have a true commitment to being great — academically and athletically.”

In a last tune-up before the 2013 season, the Creekside High School football team played at Banneker for a preseason scrimmage two weeks before the Seminoles’ season opener. It was August 16.

During the scrimmage between the two South Fulton schools, star cornerback De’Antre Turman, a 16-year-old junior for Creekside made a play on

the ball, forced a fumble and fell to the ground. Paramedics were called and he was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead following a fractured third vertebrae, the Fulton County Coroner’s Office later confirmed.

Tragedy and heartbreak to the highest degree. A child’s life was suddenly taken away while doing what he loved. The impact of Turman’s loss swept throughout the Fulton County community.

“Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of this student,” then Fulton County Schools spokeswoman Samantha Evans said to the Atlanta JournalConstitution. “This is a truly horrific way to begin a school year.”

Two weeks after that scrimmage, Creekside played its season opener against Langston Hughes with the memory of Turman still heavy on their minds. Craft was on the sideline as the 2013 high school football season began.

“That could have torn apart that community, but it banded them together,” Craft said. “On the opening kickoff, one of Creekside’s players took it all the way to the 1-yard line, and they punched it in on the next play. It was the perfect tribute to Deuce, and I think it was just incredible to see that team come together and win a state championship.”

The Seminoles posted a 15-0 season, ending with the program’s first state championship — capped with a dominant 52-28 outing against Tucker.

That was the first football state championship Craft saw during his time in Fulton.

Most recently, Langston Hughes went 15-0 and finished the 2022 season as 6A state champions and the No. 15 high school football team in the country, per MaxPreps.

Asked about moments he’s most proud of and Craft was able to list off a champion-by-champion — the 2021-22

See CRAFT, Page 3

Lamarr Glenn is now the director of athletics for Fulton County Schools. Glenn holds a bachelor’s degree from Florida State University, a MBA from Saint Leo University and an Education Specialist in Leadership degree from Berry College. He has 20 years of experience in education, 17 of which as an athletic director. He was named the 2016 Region 6-AAAAA Athletic Director of the Year while at Banneker High School, after which he moved to North Springs Charter.

Glenn was a four year letterman for FSU Football and served as the Offensive Team Captain in 1998. He was drafted in the sixth round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the Tampa Bay Bucs.

FOOTBALL SCHEDULES 2023

High school football around the region kicks off in earnest this month, renewing a fall tradition that has bred heart-stopping action and long-standing rivalries.

CRAFT

Craft:

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Tri-Cities’ boys basketball team taking over Macon Coliseum, Westlake girls basketball winning four-straight state championships before winning a national title, Milton girls lacrosse’s 18-yearlong dynasty.

And as he was gleaming with pride seeing another program reach the pinnacle of high school football as the Langston Hughes Panthers won state, he was also proud of the support within the county.

“There’s seven other head coaches from around our county cheering on Langston Hughes,” Craft said. “If it wasn’t them, they wanted it to be someone from the county.”

Craft said its part of the culture now, unique to Fulton County.

“I think that’s what separates us from anywhere else is we have some great rivalries, but we’re going to support each other,” he said. “Our kids support each other, our coaches, ADs. It’s the secret sauce, whatever you want to call it.”

Support and working to help peers is something that became a staple in Craft’s repertoire. Jasper Jewell witnessed it first-hand.

Jewell, Director of Athletics for At-

lanta Public Schools, has been friends with Craft since he took the job in Fulton County.

“A lot of our schools mirror each other in socioeconomic status, diversity and background, so it makes it an easy sell for us to mesh and work together,” Jewell said. “At the end of the day, we just want to be the best athletic directors we can for our student athletes.”

While they’ve known each other for a decade, their relationship — personally and professionally — got a boost in March 2019.

The two were at the annual Georgia Athletic Directors Association conference, sitting in seminars and going through training sessions to improve as athletic directors. One night, Jewell, Craft and several other ADs from around Metro Atlanta got together and formed the “Metro Mafia.” The group included ADs from Fulton County, City of Atlanta, Clayton County, Forsyth County, Paulding County and Gwinnett County.

“We all just formalized this group because we bounce so many ideas off of one another, whether it’s school closings, weather, issues, how we handle different issues in our district to see if it can be implemented in a neighboring district,” Jewell said. “We’re all so close to one another so we tend to lean on one another a lot. We talk a lot and develop things that we can take back to our superintendents that can make our districts better

for the betterment of our kids and the betterment of teachers and coaches.”

One of the other group developments Craft was crucial in founding was the Aspiring AD Cohort in Fulton County.

With open athletic director positions at several high schools, Craft sifted through resumes and realized how many qualified candidates came from within the district. So, Craft and other ADs and administrators founded the cohort to help train coaches, teachers and prospective athletic directors in Fulton County.

“It used to be: sit behind a desk and figure it out,” he said. “Now we have a training program that can be replicated and shared with other districts,” Craft said.

The initiative has essentially created a labor pool to fill positions with a sense of continuity and consistency, he said.

Today, six of the 16 ADs have come from the cohort.

“I think Fulton County has become a state perennial power when you look at school systems in athletics,” said former Johns Creek AD Jason Holcombe, who is set to become the Gwinnett County Public Schools Athletic Director in April. “That all starts with what Steven started 11 years ago. He made me a better athletic director, a better coach and a better mentor.”

It was late on a Wednesday night,

maybe early Thursday morning, in late May 2017, but Craft picked up the phone.

Holcombe was down in Lee County where his Johns Creek baseball team had just suffered a heartbreaking 5-3 loss in Game 2 of the GHSA state semifinal series, ending their season. The loss was extra painful because they thought they had won the game. The Gladiators won on a walk-off run, but after further review the umpire reversed the call, the game went to extra innings, and the Trojans won.

“(I) called Dr. Craft and told him that it wasn’t right, and we needed to do something,” Holcombe said. “We explained everything, he saw everything, and he was right there. We took it to GHSA, they agreed with us and the original decision was upheld so we got the opportunity to play a Game 3.”

The Game 3 was played the following week, and Johns Creek lost, but Holcombe said that the players were grateful for Craft’s involvement, allowing them a fair opportunity to extend their season.

Doing what’s right for students has always been at the center of Craft’s mission and his work. No one expects that to change.

“To say that Fulton County is losing a giant is an understatement,” Jewell said. “He’s a man of high character, a great leader and I can’t say enough about him.”

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