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Common Ground: Hawks understand Panthers' first-year journey
Shorter @ Georgia State; Thursday, Sept. 2; 7:30
p.m.
ROME, Ga. – Being part of a team’s inaugural game in an inaugural season is something few get to experience.
On Thursday night, Shorter University’s five graduate assistant football coaches will experience an even more rare opportunity.
Jackson Abercrombie, Matt Atchley, Caleb Carmean, Bud Keith and Dennis Stanley, who were teammates and members of the Hawks’ first-ever football team in 2005, are part of another first-time event – working the sidelines when the Hawks head to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta to take on Georgia State University in its inaugural gridiron contest.
“I never really thought about it – being a part of two inaugural games,” said Carmean, a former quarterback for the Hawks who now assists the team at the same position.
“I don’t think that it will be the same as what we had starting out,” said Stanley, who works with Shorter’s fullbacks. “They have a lot of transfers who have played in college before and they’ve been playing together for a year.”
“One of the hardest things for me was getting to know everyone,” said Keith, a four-year starter at safety for the Hawks who now helps coach the secondary. “Here, I was with 119 guys who I had never seen before in my life.”
All five men acknowledge that Georgia State has had the fortune of a full year to get prepared for the its first season playing as an NCAA Div. I Football Championship Series program, a luxury the first Hawks never had.
“There was a lot of uncertainty,” Carmean said. “We had to come together as a team of mostly freshmen.”
“A lot of players had been out of football for a while,” added Atchley, an assistant with the Hawks’ offensive line.
“When you join a team you look to the older players to learn how to do things,” said Abercrombie, a former Pepperell High and Shorter standout along the defensive front. “We didn’t have that.”
What the Hawks had were each other, a situation that led to a tight bonds between players and coaches and began the relationship focus that has became the foundation of the program – one that this year’s Hawks are hoping to get back to heading into Thursday’s game.
“I look back and I think that our mind-set then was of pure survival,” said Stanley. “We had no idea what college football was like. We just knew we had to make things happen.”
While Georgia State makes its debut in the 70,000-seat home of the Atlanta Falcons and site of the Southeastern Conference championship, Shorter’s inaugural game was in the friendly confines of the 6,500-seat Barron Stadium in Rome.
The Hawks wound up dropping a 16-9 decision to Webber International, but were eventually awarded the win when the Florida school forfeited the game after using an ineligible player.
Even though the outcome was not what they had envisioned for themselves the first time out of the gate as a team, those players who comprised Shorter’s first team knew they were part of something special.
“We didn’t know what to expect or what we had,” Keith said. “But midway through the second quarter I figured we had a group that would fight back.”
“We saw that we could play with teams and it brought us closer together,” said Atchley.
That first season ultimately pointed the program on a successful path.
Shorter has reeled off four straight winning seasons since the inaugural campaign, breaking into the NAIA national spotlight in 2008 when it captured its first Mid-South Conference West Division championship and earned its first NAIA Playoff berth.
While they will always treasure their inaugural year, the graduate assistants that now wear Shorter’s colors on the sideline would like nothing better than to help the Hawks spoil Georgia State’s debut as the state’s newest football program.
“Our players are ready for the excitement,” said Carmean. “I think they are prepared for the hype.”
