Since the final horn blew on the 2023 high school football season, the GHSA has hired a new executive director, warned athletes about illegal NIL deals and given football teams Thanksgiving week off for the first time in more than 100 years. Seventy-four GHSA teams hired coaches, one after a 300-game winner retired, another when a coach with five state titles unretired.

The Georgia High School Association’s board of trustees is expected to amend its bylaws Thursday to make clear that name, image and likeness collectives that pay athletes are illegal and can cost students their eligibility.

The Georgia High School Association warned schools this week that athletes signing up for a certain name, image and likeness (NIL) company are risking their eligibility if boosters pay them for their online news and content.

Kevin Giddens, a former GHSA associate director and Colquitt County athletic director and football coach, died Wednesday at age 59. GHSA executive director Robin Hines confirmed the news to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Giddens joined the GHSA in 2018 and was the association’s football coordinator from 2019 until retiring in June 2023.

The 2024 high school football championship games will be played Dec. 16-18, five days later than last season, and the five playoff rounds will have an unprecedented Thanksgiving week off, GHSA executive director Robin Hines confirmed Friday morning. The playoff dates will be Nov. 8-9 (first round), Nov. 15 (second round), Nov. 22 (third round), Dec. 6 (semifinals) and Dec. 16-18 (finals).

Chip Kell, a former University of Tennessee football All-American who was an inaugural inductee into the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame in 2022 for his days at Avondale in DeKalb County, has died at age 75. Kell was a star lineman for Avondale teams that never lost more than one game in a season in the 1960s.

Nine former Georgia players and eight from Georgia Tech are among the 30 selected for this year’s Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame inductions. Another state school, Morris Brown, which shut down its football program in 2003, remarkably had three former players make it, all high school stars from the 1960s