GIA (1948-70)
2023 INDUCTEES
Julius Adams
Ballard-Hudson High School Graduate
Julius Adams was Ballard-Hudson High’s team MVP as a senior two-way tackle in 1966. His hometown Macon Telegraph called Adams a “star tackle” and "one of the outstanding linesmen in the state of Georgia” as a junior. Adams, who was 6 feet, 4 inches and 250 pounds as a senior, also was an outstanding track-and-field thrower in the shot put and javelin. UCLA and Michigan State recruited him, but he opted to attend Texas Southern, where he was a four-year starter. Adams earned all-conference in 1968 and 1970. Before his NFL rookie season, he played in the College Football All-Star Game in Chicago, which pitted college all-stars against the reigning NFL champion Baltimore Colts. The New England Patriots drafted Adams in the second round of the 1971 NFL Draft. He started as a rookie and finished fifth in the NFL’s defensive rookie-of-the-year voting. Adams played in 206 NFL games across 16 seasons with 158 starts. He had 80.5 career sacks. In 1980, Adams made the Pro Bowl. Adams is a member of the Patriots’ 1970s and 1980s all-decade teams and the 35th- and 50th-anniversary teams. In 1985, his final season as a Patriots starter, Adams played in the Super Bowl against the Chicago Bears. Adams passed away on in 2016, at age 67, just days before after being selected to the Macon Sports Hall of Fame. Adams is the father of Keith Adams, a seven-year NFL middle linebacker.
Ernie Green
Spencer High School Graduate
Ernie Green is remembered in the NFL as the fullback who opened holes for NFL legend Jim Brown, but Green, a Columbus, Ga., native, produced 5,240 yards from scrimmage in his own right – 3,204 rushing, 2,036 receiving – during a seven-year career with the Cleveland Browns. Green and Brown made up the Browns’ starting backfield for their NFL championship team in 1964. Green switched from halfback to fullback after Brown’s retirement and helped block for Leroy Kelly, another NFL Hall of Famer, leading to Green’s selection to Pro Bowls in 1966 and 1967. In high school, Green was a star in the Georgia Interscholastic Association and played for Spencer, the GIA’s greatest football program. Spencer won four GIA championships in Georgia’s segregated era, including one during Green’s junior season of 1956, when Spencer was undefeated. Green was a rare four-year starter for legendary GIA coach Odis Spencer. Green also was his school’s class president and a member of the National Honor Society. Green went on to play at the University of Louisville, one of the first historically white Southern schools to allow African American players. Green led Louisville in rushing twice. He also was the third baseman and the only African American on Louisville’s baseball team. Green has been inducted into Louisville’s Ring of Honor. After his football days, Green founded Ernie Green Industries, a Kettering, Ohio, company that opened 15 manufacturing plants in three countries.
PREVIOUS INDUCTEES
Emerson Boozer
Laney High School Graduate
Emerson Boozer arguably is the best Georgia Interscholastic Association player ever. He scored more than 20 touchdowns for Laney’s 1961 GIA championship team and scored the lone touchdown to go along with 156 rushing yards in the 7-0 championship win over Washington. Boozer also ran for 314 yards in a single game against Peter G. Appling in 1961. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2007 ranked Boozer as the No. 15 Georgia high school football player of all time. He was selected in the sixth round of the 1966 AFL Draft by the Jets and in the seventh round of the 1966 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Boozer signed with the Jets and won the AFL championship with them in 1968 before going on to beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Boozer became the first former GIA player ever to win a Super Bowl. Boozer was selected to two Pro Bowls and led the AFL in rushing touchdowns in 1967. He also became the only graduate of a GIA school to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame for his exploits at Maryland Eastern Shore.
Clarence Scott
Trinity High School Graduate
Clarence Scott won a state championship as a two-way starter at Trinity High in Decatur in 1965, then became the first graduate of a Georgia Interscholastic Association school to become a first-team All-American in a major college football conference and then the first to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft. Scott was a two-year starter at Trinity, the Decatur school for African Americans during segregation, and played wide receiver and cornerback. He played four seasons, three as a starter, at Kansas State. In 1970, he was named All-American (FWAA, Sporting News, Time, Pro Football Weekly), making him the first African American from a Georgia high school to do so in what now would be called a Power 5 Conference. (There have been more than 75 since.) In 1971, the Browns drafted him 14th overall. He intercepted two passes in his first NFL game. Scott played 13 NFL seasons and made the 1973 Pro Bowl. Scott is a member of sports halls of fame for Kansas State and the states of Georgia and Kansas.
Otis Sistrunk
Spencer High School Graduate
Otis Sistrunk, best known as a star defensive end for outstanding Oakland Raiders teams of the 1970s, was a product of Spencer High, the predominant football power in the old Georgia Interscholastic Association that operated during segregation. At 6 feet, 4 inches, Sistrunk was an outstanding player for his Columbus high school in the 1960s but chose to enter the U.S. Marine Corps afterward. Sistrunk then played in two semi-pro leagues for the next five years and garnered three all-star selections. An NFL scout saw him in a 1971 all-star game and got him a tryout, and that’s how he joined the Raiders. He made the NFL all-rookie team in 1972 and the Pro Bowl in 1974 and started on the Raiders’ Super Bowl championship team for the 1976 season. After his pro career, Sistrunk returned to Georgia and worked in Fort Benning for 12 years. He now runs Cowan and Memorial Stadium on Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the state of Washington.