Georgia HS Football Hall of Fame adds 40 to ballot

Former Georgia football stars David Greene, Alec Ogletree and Thomas Davis, Georgia Tech legends Kim King and Demaryius Thomas and Atlanta Falcons greats Jessie Tuggle and Alfred Jenkins are among the 40 newest Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame ballot members released Wednesday.

The new list also includes Clemson national championship quarterback Homer Jordan and College Football Hall of Fame coach Frank Broyles.

The hall’s board members will vote to select 32 played from a 100-player ballot next month for induction in October. The latest 40 replace the 40 inducted in the 2023 class.

Greene was a quarterback at South Gwinnett, leading the Comets to an eight- and nine-win seasons in 1998-99 after they’d gone 0-10 his sophomore year. Greene was a four-year starter at Georgia.

Ogletree, from Newnan, was the Class 5A defensive player of the year in 2009, then an All-SEC defensive back at Georgia who played 10 NFL seasons.

Davis at Georgia and Thomas at Georgia Tech were All-American college players and All-Pro NFL players, each from small rural Georgia high schools – Davis at Randolph-Clay and Thomas at West Laurens.

King, Tech’s long-time radio color commentator who died in 2004, was the Class 3A Back of the year for Atlanta’s Brown High in 1962, then a three-year starting quarterback and Tech.

Jenkins would become the Falcons’ all-time leading receiver and Tuggle their all-time leading tackler. Both were underrated all-state high school players. Jenkins, from Hogansville, went to Morris Brown while Tuggle, of Griffin, went to Valdosta State.

Broyles was a three-sport high school star at Decatur High before becoming Georgia Tech’s 1946 Orange Bowl quarterback and more famously Arkansas’ football coach who won seven Southwest Conference titles and one national championship.

The new ballot members span from Jack “The Ripper” Roberts, a former Georgia All-American and NFL player who led Albany to 9-1 finishes in 1926 and 1927, to Mitch Hyatt, a two-time All-American and national champion at Clemson who was an AJC Super 11 player at North Gwinnett in 2014.

Three new ballot members played in the Georgia Interscholastic Association, which ran sports for African American schools though 1970. They are former NFL players and Super Bowl winners George Atkinson of Tompkins and Frank Pitts of Archer along with former Spencer star Wallace Davis.

Other interesting new ballot members include James Jackson, Georgia’s first full-time African American starting quarterback in the 1980s. In high school, he was known as the dual-threat “Thrilla from Camilla” while leading Mitchell-Baker to the 1983 Class 3A championship.

Other former Georgia players added to the ballot are Abry Jones of Northside-Warner Robins, Curt McGill of Brookwood, Travis Stroud of Dunwoody, Curt Douglas of Lincoln County, David McCluskey of West Rome, Knox Culpepper of Lovett, Mack Guest of Central-Macon, Billy Brice of Avondale and John Carson of Roosevelt.

The hall of fame is managed by Score Atlanta, a local marketing company. It has 40 voting board members of former coaches, players, administrators and media. Inductions take place at the College Football Hall of Fame downtown.

Below are the new ballot members, those returning to the ballot and those inducted in the 2022 and 2023 classes.

New on the ballot:

Returning to ballot (60):

Past inductees (85):

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