The GHSA-endorsed competitive balance reclassification model needs to make up lost ground Monday when the GHSA’s reclass committee resumes its monthly meetings in Thomaston. The meeting agenda, which the GHSA posted Wednesday, includes discussion of competitive balance and a separate reclass model introduced last month.

Rance Gillespie, a 21-year head coach in Georgia, is Rabun County’s new football coach. The northeast Georgia mountain school made the announcement last week. Gillespie, a Rabun County alumnus, is a 21-year Georgia head coach with stops at five schools, most notably Peach County, where he won two state titles.

The Georgia High School Association legalized name, image, likeness (NIL) deals for high school athletes in October 2024, but those contracts remain scarce and rarely lead to big money, the GHSA’s Robin Hines said last week. Hines was the GHSA’s executive director when NIL deals were approved. He retired last summer but stayed on as the GHSA’s liaison to the Georgia General Assembly.

Citing PTSD, anxiety, grief and depression, Mike Hancock has resigned as football coach at Apalachee, the Barrow County school that was the site of a Sept. 4 shooting that left two students and two faculty members dead. One of those killed in the shooting, Richard Aspinwall, was Hancock’s defensive coordinator.

Michael Davis is out as Rabun County’s football coach, saying he retired, though it sounds as if he’d prefer to stay. “I’m retiring, and I’m going to leave it at that,” Davis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I’m not done coaching by any means. I’m hoping to get on somewhere at 49% (part-time) and do something. I still love kids and want to be around them.” Davis’ Rabun County teams were 12-1, 9-4 and 6-5.

Pace Academy announced former Atlanta Falcons linebacker Sean Weatherspoon as its head football coach Friday. Weatherspoon was a 2010 first-round NFL Draft pick who played six seasons with the Falcons and one with the Cardinals. He started 44 of his 67 NFL games.

Jonathan Gess, who led Hebron Christian to its first football state title last season, announced Wednesday that he is taking the head coaching job at Southside Christian near Greenville, S.C., in his home state. Gess’s Hebron Christian team won the Class 3A-A private division last season, Gess’ third with the Gwinnett County school.

Dutchtown is the latest winning football team looking for a head coach. Niketa Battle was fired Friday despite a 25-13 record in three seasons and a Class 5A semifinal finish in 2022. “I had some kids that transferred, and administration said I had limited parent contact and they wanted to go in a different direction,” Battle told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Greg Vandagriff, who resigned last week as Prince Avenue Christian’s football coach, was announced Wednesday morning as head coach at Lakeway Christian Academy in Lake Pine, Tennessee. “It’s a program that’s just started up and hasn’t had a ton of success, and they want to make a financial commitment to being successful, and it starts with hiring a head coach,” Vandagriff told the AJC.