Author: Robert Preston

I was standing on the sidelines at Mercedes-Benz, staring across the field at the scoreboard. The Coffee Trojans were leading the Creekside Seminoles 24-14. It was the fourth quarter with 7:30 remaining in the game. The Seminoles had just scored on a 40-yard touchdown pass from Vinson Berry to Shane Kelley and the Seminoles were teeing up the ball to kick to the Trojans. And I was scared. Terrified in fact. Coffee had dominated Creekside in the first half. The Trojans had taken a 21-0 lead into the locker room and, quite honestly, it wasn’t even…

“This means everything. It’s the first state championship for the Coffee Trojans. It means everything for me, everything for my team,” said Coffee Trojans quarterback Maurice Hansley after the Trojans defeated the Creekside Seminoles 31-14 in the Class 5A state championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Coffee not only finishes the season with the first state title in program history but also with a perfect 15-0 record. Hansley book-ended the Trojans’ scoring with a pair of touchdowns — he scored the first and last touchdowns of the night, the final one an eight-yard run put an exclamation…

If I asked you to come up with a Who’s Who of Coffee County, what names would you give? I can imagine who many of them would be. Their names are on streets, buildings, churches, scholarships, and stories of their work and donations fill editions of local media outlets. But not all of the individuals who have made Coffee County what it is today are well known. They aren’t front and center, smiling for the cameras and being quoted in the newspaper. Instead, they choose to do their work in private, serving the community behind the scenes and neither seeking…

“Expenditures are up. But the good news is revenues are up in the same relation. So we’ve got a balanced budget,” said county administrator Wesley Vickers at Monday morning’s county commission meeting as he discussed the 2024 budget with commissioners. On November 20, the county held a public hearing regarding the budget. The general fund budget is $21.9 million and the combined special revenue funds are $29.5 million. The larger special revenue funds include SPLOST VI; next year there will be SPLOST VII, the insurance premium tax fund, and the TIA fund. Commissioners had no questions or comments…

The battle cry for the Coffee Trojans since beating the Cartersville Purple Hurricanes last Friday has been “Finish!” The Maxwell Ratings, as published in The Georgia High School Football Daily on Thursday morning, believe the Trojans are going to do just that. The ratings have Coffee as six-point favorites heading into Wednesday’s state championship game against the Creekside Seminoles in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Trojans and the Seminoles have a history – albeit a short one. In 2021, Creekside ended Coffee’s season in the first round of the state playoffs 28-18. In that game, Creekside…

A new year is a convenient time to make changes. City utilities customers will see such a change in 2024 in the form of higher trash collection bills. At last week’s city commission meeting, commissioners voted unanimously to approve raising customer billing by 2.7 percent to account for an increase in the amount GFL Environmental is charging the city for trash collection. This item was on the November 13 meeting agenda and commissioners engaged in a lengthy discussion with GFL district manager Chad Edwards and Douglas transfer station manager Mike Taft regarding issues surrounding trash collection. Most of…

To say Tyreek Hill is having a season for the ages would be an understatement. He’s on his way to having the best season a wide receiver has ever had in the NFL and, in the process, solidifying his place among the all-time greats in Canton. I’ve always thought that Hill needed eight years at an elite level to make it in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. What’s always made me nervous about him is his size (he’s not very big), the potential punishment he exposes himself to, and his reliance on speed – which can fade…

All year long, Coffee head coach Mike Coe has said that his defense doesn’t flinch. They’ve given up big plays from time to time. But when that happens, someone always steps up and makes a play to keep the other team from capitalizing. It happened again Friday night. After a shaky first half that saw the Cartersville Purple Hurricanes down 17-0 at the break, the ‘Canes came out with a renewed sense of urgency and attacked the Coffee Trojans from every angle. They ran. They threw. They moved up and down the field, sometimes seemingly at will. …

Two games don’t really make a rivalry but it certainly seems as though the Coffee Trojans and Cartersville Purple Hurricanes are more familiar with each other than they really are. Maybe it’s not how many times the two teams have played each but instead, what was at stake in each of those meetings. The Trojans and Purple Hurricanes never played prior to the 2020 season — a COVID-complicated year that saw the season start and finish late. Coffee made the long trip up I-75 and played Cartersville in the semifinals just two years removed from playing for a…

“I’ll take these guys anywhere,” said Coffee Trojans head coach Mike Coe following Friday night’s game against the Cass Colonels at Jardine Stadium. It’s good that Coe’s not averse to traveling with his team; next week, they’re going to Cartersville to face the Purple Hurricanes for the second year in a row after shutting out the Colonels 30-0 in the quarterfinals. Friday was a historic night for the Trojans; it’s the first time they’ve won 13 games in a season. And it’s only the fourth time in program history that they’ve advanced to the semifinals. They…