Despite major renovations to Franklin High School, Panther athletes haven’t wavered.
For more than a year some sports have been without a true home, playing and practicing elsewhere as their stadium and weight rooms are rebuilt. For the school’s Bigger, Faster, Stronger physical education classes, Macon Middle School has been a home away from home.
“The weight racks, the Job Corps actually came and did those, and we did the lockers. … It was a pain,” said multi-sport athlete Anderson Terrell of moving equipment from FHS to MMS. “We piled them up on [Panther football head coach Josh Brooks’] trailer, and he brought them over on his truck. … It was trying to get it all in here and organized, because everybody was stressed out – we didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“It took a little while, but it wasn’t too bad with all of us helping,” said Cayson McAllister, Terrell’s football/baseball teammate.
Shortly after their 2024 season, Panther football had little time to rest, moving the contents of the former Panther Pit field house to the new MMS athletics building just ahead of the high school project’s groundbreaking. On a new practice field nearby, the team was also pressed into service.
“Then we laid out all the sod down there … so that whole practice field, we laid out all that grass,” said McAllister.
“It was like team bonding, almost. We were all out there, and some of us would sing and stuff,” said Terrell.
Since the new facilities were completed, Franklin’s weight training students have spent the past year bussing back and forth to MMS. While this does cost precious minutes and gasoline for the county buses, it also gives upperclassmen an added bonus.
“It’s honestly easier for us, because we get to drive,” said Terrell. “And then we have baseball after, so obviously we just stay here.”
With a weight room, locker room, gymnasium, practice fields and batting cages on hand, MMS is a one-stop shop for BFS students. With a system devised by coaches to maximize athletes’ time, players say the class is crucial in preparing for the season.
“We’ll get here, come in and change, and then we usually do some stretches and some core [workouts], and then we do the weights,” said Terrell. “They have to bus the underclassmen back over so they’ve got to go kind of early, but it works out good.”
“Half of us go to the gym and do a bunch of cardio, running, footwork and whatnot,” said Damion Bowles, Terrell and McAllister’s teammate on Panther football and baseball. “And then in here [the athletics building] is where we’ll really hit the weights.”
Originally planned as a multipurpose space for sports like wrestling and cheer, the building has taken on a new purpose since its completion in 2024, acting as a temporary overflow space until the high school project is completed. In helping balance time on task for hundreds of Panther athletes, Brooks thanked his fellow coaches and staff for their understanding.
“We’re so lucky to have this building,” he said. “Mark Sutton [MMS principal] has been really gracious to us. He’s really worked well with us – he didn’t have to – and so did the wrestling coaches, because they sacrificed a lot to allow us to be in here, too. So, we’re very thankful for that. We’re not the only ones that have made sacrifices for us to be here.”