An incredible run of success continues for Macon Middle School athletics.
After a stellar 2022-23, in which MMS teams racked up eight conference titles and went a combined 113-7 in team sports, the Panthers have continued their stretch of dominance into 2023-24. With fall conference titles in football, volleyball, boys soccer and boys swimming, athletic director Zach Tallent recently discussed their success in fall team sports.
“Last year, football and soccer went undefeated, and volleyball lost one non-conference game to Cherokee,” he said. “This year, football and volleyball went undefeated, and soccer lost one regular-season game to Smoky [Mountain].”
Under head coaches Nathan Raby, Brooke Watson and Sam Vargas, respectively, MMS’s football, volleyball and men’s soccer teams have spent the past two years running roughshod over the Blue Ridge Athletic Conference. With nearly a dozen schools competing in each sport, Tallent says Macon’s success is anything but a coincidence.
“I think number one, we have a great pool of student-athletes,” he said. “They’re super-competitive and super hard-working; they’re doing things in the offseason on their own time to get better at whatever sport it is they’re doing. We’ve also got a really great pool of coaches. We’ve got a lot of experienced coaches, a lot of coaches that are somewhat new, but they know their sport inside and out – they might be new to coaching, but they’re not new to the sport. They’re young and energetic, and we have a great mix of coaches that have been around for a long, long time, too, so I think [it’s] that combination of things with great athletes and really great coaching.”
With dedicated leaders and huge numbers of athletes trying out for sports, it’s little wonder why MMS teams have been so successful this fall. But while Tallent is one of the few common threads that link all the teams together, the third-year A.D. deflected credit for his teams’ myriad accomplishments.
“I’m as hands-off as I can be,” he said of leading the program. “I firmly believe that coaches should have autonomy in their programs. They get hired for a reason, and I don’t want to interfere with that. Like I said, I’m a facilitator, so anything logistically that they may need help with – getting buses, traveling, stuff like that – is pretty much the extent to which I’m involved in most sports.”
Aside from his role as football defensive coordinator, in which he coached a dominant unit that held opponents to just 44 points across seven games, Tallent has given his coaches broad powers to lead their own teams. In close coordination with their coaching counterparts at Franklin High School, MMS seems to have laid the cornerstone for strong varsity teams for years to come.
“We know and recognize that we build the foundation for the success of any sport at the high school, so all of our coaches try to work pretty closely with their high school coaches in the same sport, just so they know what they’re getting as [players] move up,” he said. “In football, we’re making the same offensive and defensive calls, running the same plays and things like that. ... I’ve really tried to make sure that we can foster those relationships between the high school and middle school coaches, because I firmly believe we’re all one big program. I want to see everybody be successful, and I think the best way to do that is to communicate and work effectively together.”
In collaborating with their high school counterparts, whom in many cases they’ve played under as athletes themselves, MMS coaches have laid the groundwork for continued success all the way up to the varsity level. In addition to players and coaches, Tallent said the third crucial component to the program’s success has been support from their MMS classmates.
“It’s been great to see the student involvement. As far as the fans, we’ve really tried to create that home-court, home-field advantage,” he said. “In the soccer and volleyball playoffs, students got in for free just so we could pack the house, and I think it really made a big difference. ... We’ve got kids, even if they’re not playing a sport, they’re going to watch. Or, if they play one sport during the fall, they’re getting out of practice to go watch another team.”
With four fall conference titles in hand, MMS shows no signs of slowing this year, defending team championships in men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball as well as an individual wrestling title from Garrett Young. The Press will report on these teams’ seasons in future editions.