By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          The spring was just rolling along at Stratford, and athletics director Barry Veal was overseeing a transition in football.

          Otherwise, things were nice and fairly quiet.

For more on Veal’s decision and Stratford baseball, visit www.maconmelody.com on Friday.

          Then, all of a sudden, he had to begin the process of looking for a new head baseball coach for 2025 when head coach Danny Camp took the athletics director job at Piedmont, where his coaching career began.

          Initially, Camp – also the Eagles’ head softball coach - was to finish out the season at Stratford, but soon after the announcement of Camp’s departure, he and Veal observed the landscape and agreed it would be best for Camp to go ahead and get a head start on his new job.

          And Veal took over as interim head coach, back in late March.

          Rob Fitzpatrick, in his first season at Stratford as an assistant baseball and softball coach under Camp, with whom he worked at Westfield, had a bit of a vision.

          “I think he enjoyed it,” said Fitzpatrick, who also takes over the softball program in the fall, “and he’s thinking about keeping doing it.”

          That was back April as the young Eagles battled to a 14-15 record, going 7-9 under Veal, who said he decided in mid-June that he’d stay on as head baseball coach.

          The 58-year-old Veal found out immediately he hadn’t lost any enthusiasm.

          “I know this is why I missed it,” he said. “When I got out there and saw the kids and how much fun they were having, yeah.”

          The season came to an end in the first round of the GIAA 4A playoffs against Mount de Sales, Stratford opening with a 3-1 win before falling 2-1 and 7-1.

          “I told them when I took over, ‘We're going to get better by the end of the season, and we're going to be a hard out for somebody in the playoffs,’” Veal said. “And we were. We took Mount de Sales to three games. Mount de Sales was pretty pretty darn good. They had the boat load of seniors.”

June 7: New basketball bosses at Washington County and Dodge County, football at Wilkinson County

May 31: Jones County baseball, Dublin softball & girls basketball, ACE wrestling & tennis, Trinity Christian basketball, Brentwood baseball, Howard football

May 10: Coaching carousel: After two decades, several state titles, Trieste retires from FPD; Lane back in CGA, at Trinity Christian; Warner Robins football
May 6: Coaches Carousel: From Warner Robins to Veterans, Tracy Fendley back on bench; FPD veteran Spear leaving softball; Roundup: Jones County, Perry, Dodge County
May 4: Fitzpatrick/Stratford softball, Brian Brown/Dublin baseball, around the area (John Milledge softball, Belflower/Tattnall, Greene/Stratford)
May 2: Dickey back on bench at Brentwood; Bleckley County plucks from Dublin, Warner Robins; Houston County's new head girls hoops coach

April 22: Tattnall girls basketball, Twiggs County football, Veterans girls basketball
April 10: Jones County announces new head basketball coaches

March 26: From Stratford to Piedmont, from Jones County to Northside (times 2), Danny Camp and ChoRhonda and Buck Harris moving
March 2: Macon County hires a familiar face

Feb. 16: Howard has a new head football coach who has been well tested on high school and college levels
Feb. 8: GMC promotes from within

Jan. 10: Baldwin goes just down the road for its  newest head football coach, who has a winning background as a player and coach
Jan. 4:  Paul Carroll is on the move, but not far, leaving Howard and taking over at Stratford

          Veal told his wife years ago that upon retirement, he wanted to get back in as an assistant coach.

“I miss the sport,” he said. “But I really had no intentions of going back and coaching anywhere, to be honest with you, certainly not head coaching.”

          Veal went 472-191, according to the Georgia Dugout Preview. as head coach at Jones County, resigning to focus on being the school’s full-time athletics director. The Greyhounds under Veal and successor Jason Page were one of Central Georgia’s top programs.

          That came after a high school and college athletics career that put him in the Macon Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.

          Veal was a multi-sport star at FPD, racking up all-state in baseball and basketball. His single-season and single-game basketball scoring records were broken only a few years ago. Veal set baseball records for the Vikings in single-game strikeouts (18), while also playing outfield and some first base.

          His basketball jersey is retired, and he was recruited for hoops by Georgia Tech, but picked Mercer for both sports, and is still in the baseball record books.

          Veal’s coaching career started after a stint in the Detroit Tigers organization, for a spring training. He then was hired as head baseball coach at John Milledge for three years, spent a year back at Mercer, and then was hired as Jones County’s head baseball coach starting with the 1993-94 school year.

Hawkinsville picks Perry alum

          Familiarity won’t be much of a problem for new Hawkinsville head girls basketball coach Ashanta Wallace.

          She has been in the Pulaski County system for nine years, and coached middle school girls for eight years. She has twice been nominated for a count teacher of the year honor, in 2020 at Pulaski Elementary and 2023 at Pulaski Middle.

          Wallace graduated from Perry in 2009, then from Georgia Military College and Magna Cum Laude from Middle Georgia State in 2015. She added a Master’s from Valdosta State in 2019 and specialist from Liberty a year later, and is working on her doctorate.

Piedmont adds two

          New athletics director Danny Camp jumped into the HR role pretty quickly after taking over at the end of school.

          Piedmont has added assistants Christian Palmer and Aubry Payne

          Palmer is a Stratford grad, where he was a three-sport athlete in football, basketball and track. He played basketball at Georgia Southwestern and Oglethorpe, before finishing his degree requirements at Georgia College. He assisted in football and basketball at Brentwood, and graduated in May.

          Payne graduated from Locust Grove and played football at Western Carolina and Georgia State, earning two all-conference selections with the Panthers. He spent 2023 at East Tennessee State.

Back at Mary Persons, for now

          The father of fast-pitch softball at Mary Persons is back.

          Ronnie Shipman was coaching slow-pitch ball at Monticello and moved to Forysth to get Mary Persons going in fast-pitch back in 2002-03.

          After starting off 13-20 in his first two seasons at Mary Persons, the Bulldogs hit a stretch of four straight 20-win seasons. He resigned after going 20-9 in 2014-15, focusing on academics as an instructional technology coordinator.

          He replaces Jessica Evans, who resigned in May to take over at Rabun County. She went 21-32-2 int wo seasons following Hannah Grossman, who succeeded Shipman in 2015-16 and had three winning seasons in seven.

Shipman left the coaching and teaching spots to work in the county system as the Instructional Technology Coach. It’s expected to be a one-year move, because of the late time-frame and due to a county rule about coaches not being in administrative roles.

Movements in Milledgeville

          GMC Prep is looking for a boys basketball coach, thanks to moving in Milledgeville.

          Bo Kilby is returning to his alma mater at John Milledge after three seasons as head boys basketball coach at GMC, where he took over after nine seasons as an assistant at John Milledge, his alma mater after having transferred from GMC Prep as a high schooler.

          The Bulldogs, according to MaxPreps info, went 27-54 in three seasons, and are looking for their first winning season since 2019-20, the final year under county legend James Lunsford.

          Kilby, who played college basketball at Georgia College and Georgia Southwestern and graduated from Georgia College, will be the JMA middle school principal, athletics director, and boys basketball coach while teaching high school honors and AP biology.

          John Milledge has added Carter Mangel to the football staff where he will lead the strength and conditioning program. The North Oconee grad played at Tusculum and has coached at Concord U. in West Virginia the past few seasons, coaching several position.