Chamblee High Football

SPORTS

Talented players, enthusiastic fans fuel Chamblee High Bulldogs’ comeback

Fabian Walker, Jr. (Photos Courtesy Chamblee High School)

BY ALEX EWALT

The Chamblee High School football program has come a long way since the spring of 2019.

These days, the Bulldogs have playmakers on the field and enthusiastic fans in the stands of their home venue, North DeKalb Stadium. They have a star senior quarterback, an exciting offensive attack and, at press time, a 3-1 record heading into region play. In short, Chamblee has a rising profile in one of the most talent-rich counties in America.

Led by quarterback Fabian Walker Jr., the Bulldogs are in the mix for their first playoff berth since 2009. Before Region 4-AAAAA began on Sept. 29, Chamblee had scorched Towers 58-0, Dunwoody 37-21 and Riverwood 55-23 to get off to a strong start.

But when current head coach Bob Swank arrived as the Chamblee defensive coordinator in 2019 after a four-year tenure as the head coach at Duluth, the program was in the midst of perhaps the roughest stretch in its history, which dates back to 1950.

“When I got here, we were at the very bottom,” Swank said. “We were one of the two or three worst teams in DeKalb County.”

Swank was part of a new coaching staff in 2019 under head coach Scott Schwarzer, who had been Swank’s offensive coordinator at Duluth. In the five seasons prior, Chamblee had managed just six wins — including going winless in 2018.

“Our first spring (in 2019), we had 24 players, and we could barely field a team for that first spring game,” Swank said.

The new staff immediately set about changing the culture and beefing up participation. After a one-win showing that fall, the rebuild started to pay off with an improved 5-1 mark in a non-region schedule during the Covid-shortened 2020 season. Then when Schwarzer left Chamblee to take the head job at Northview in Fulton, Swank was promoted to head coach for the 2021 season and was determined to continue the Bulldogs’ upward trajectory. Chamblee went 9-1 in Swank’s first season, another non-region campaign that was scheduled in order to help the program regain its footing against manageable competition (the team was ineligible for the playoffs last year due to its non-region status).

For Swank to recruit potential players from a student body that was accustomed to watching a losing program, he figured a fun, loose atmosphere and a high-octane offense couldn’t hurt.

“We do talk about just having fun and going out and playing,” Swank said. “We don’t put a lot of pressure on our players.”

Swank, a defensive coach, has a talented young offensive coordinator in Michael Freeman leading the team’s wide-open attack. Walker powers the offense with both his arm (13 touchdown passes through four games) and legs (three rushing touchdowns). The game plan is for Walker to sling the ball around, including to talented wideouts like Tristian Sizemore and Jordan Thornton, among others. But the signal-caller says he is developing his ground game with encouragement from Swank.

“I’ve been a defensive coach my whole life. Just the stress that a running Fabian puts on a defense, it’s big. If (the defense has) to drop back and defend the passing game, that’s one thing. But if I have a kid who can run for 50 yards at any time, that’s a big problem for a defense.”

Walker, 6’2” and 190 pounds, has come a long way since he was forced into playing time as a freshman in a one-win season, surrounded by other underclassmen because of lack of depth. Making the playoffs is a goal,