SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. — Athletic programs at Social Circle High School are filled with numerous multi-sport athletes. For instance, Mason Moore played football and baseball while a Redskin, Jada Hyman plays softball, basketball and runs track and other examples can be found for Social Circle.

Student-athletes get the chance to be involved in a plethora of sports beginning at Social Circle Middle School. The school’s athletic director Chris Davis, who enters his second year in this capacity, highlighted the benefits of students being involved in different sports.

“No. 1, they find out what they really like. And then they also get a chance to explore what they are really good at,” Davis said. “But I think what they also find is that ‘I love this sport, but this sport makes me better at this sport because it, first off, gives me a break from the sport. But it also works on things that may not be spent as much time working on.’ It’s kind of how an English class can help you in social studies. Math can help you in science.”

Just like the aforementioned high school players, Social Circle Middle has a few players to perform admirably across multiple arenas.

Garrett Brooks plays basketball and baseball while Layla Guy and Milani Hundley are involved in four sports apiece. Then, there’s Sophia Fautenaut who would play a full basketball, run off the court and return to be a cheerleader for the boys basketball game. That is in addition to her involvement with the track and field team.

Davis estimates that 30 percent of all the school’s kids are multi-sport athletes. He believes that’s the byproduct of the size of the school population.

“I think it takes a special kid who can excel at multiple sports,” Davis said. “Being smaller, your kids get more opportunity. You don’t get lost in the crowd. So I think kids here probably are more willing.”

All of the multi-sport athletes helped lead the Redskins to great success in the 2022-23 school year.

The football team finished runner-up in the PAC League, softball and track and field finished fourth while the wrestling team “kept doing what wrestling does” with its top four finish.

This was the first year for the volleyball program and they had nearly 50 students try out for the team. Cross country’s program grew to 15 runners with numerous individuals continuously beating their personal records.

The Redskins’ swimming squad had seven swimmers set school records either individually or with their relay teams.

So many kids (50) tried out for the baseball team that the Redskins had three different teams — one fifth/sixth grade team and two seventh/eighth grade teams, which competed in two different leagues. And each soccer team showed progress by season’s end.

Davis emphasized that each program was “not the same team” with their evident progression. Overall, though, Davis wants to see the entire athletic department continually working toward preparing each middle school student-athlete to be successful in the future.

“All of them were different teams in the end compared to where they were at the beginning,” Davis said. “Ultimately you want them to learn the game, enjoy the game of sport and we want them to get ready for high school. There’s that vertical alignment of middle school is a feeder to the high school programs. I think our teams are doing a good job of getting them prepared to really climb that ladder.”