Four MCMS football players earn spots on elite state roster

The Georgia team will take on “Team Florida” June 18th at Woodward Academy in College Park. The kids will spend a week in Atlanta staying and practicing at Emory University.

Madison County members include seventh graders Ethan South (wide receiver) and Cameron Stevenson (wide receiver), as well as eighth grade team members Marquez Henson (defensive back) and Jaylyn Howard (offensive line).

MCMS 2010 football coach Tim Drake said making the Team Georgia squad is a great accomplishment.

“This is a great honor and accomplishment for each of the young men that made the respective teams,” said Drake. “This is a great opportunity for them to experience a different level of competition, and also a chance to see how academics and athletics work together. I am very proud of these young men and their hard work in making the teams. Each of the young men will be great representatives for our football teams and school system.”

Drake said he felt MCMS should have been represented with six team members, not four. He said two other players proved worthy of making the squad.

“TJ Skelton and Malik Freeman also went to the combine,” said Drake. “They did not make it, but in my very biased opinion, they were two of the better receivers at the combine. Obviously, being their coach I felt they were as good as the others, but also their performance showed it.”

The middle schoolers on the Team Georgia squad were selected out of hundreds of hopefuls at recent tryouts in Albany and Atlanta.

“They are undoubtedly going to be star athletes to watch out for as they take on Team Florida,” Team Georgia organizers said in a press release.

According to the event organizers, the Future Stars Game is the “premiere all-star football game for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.”

“Hundreds of players try out each year to represent their respective states in the Future Stars Game,” organizers said. “Tryouts were conducted by the top high school and middle school coaches in the respective state as well as local NFL greats. From the hundreds that try out, each state has selected a 45-man sixth, seventh and eighth grade roster for each team. Team selection was based solely on the evaluators and by coaches conducting the tryouts.”