Help wanted, Tattnall: Whetsel leaving AD, girls BKB gig for GICAA's top job

By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com

            Todd Whetsel wasn’t looking to go anywhere.
            He’d spent his entire coaching career in Macon private schools, and was more than content with life as Tattnall’s athletics director and head girls basketball coach.
            “Tattnall’s a destination,” Whetsel said. “It’s a great job. Got great facilities, got the best trainer around, you’ve got good coaches, great families.
            “I mean, it’s a dream job.”
            And one Whetsel vacates at the end of the school year, along with the basketball gig, to take over as the head of the Georgia Independent Christian Athletic Association.
            Whetsel talked about his career change on his final Friday night home game as the Trojans’ head coach, a 52-43 win on Jan. 25 over Wilkinson County. Alas, Tattnall is on a three-game losing streak as it opens Region 7-A tournament play Tuesday afternoon against Aquinas.
            Odds are not with the 6-17 Trojans knocking off the 12-7 Fighting Irish, which, however, is on a 1-6 stretch entering the tournament.
            “I wish things were better here, as far as the record my last year,” Whetsel said. “But we have had a run of success.”
            Whetsel is 163-72 at Tattnall, and this is his first losing season with the Trojans, who went 52-6 in 2014-16. He has been AD for eight years of his nine years at the school.
            The Tucker native and Forest Hills Christian School grad has also coached at Gilead, Central Fellowship, and Covenant.

            Whetsel wasn’t looking when the GICAA – which plans to change its name to GAPPS, Georgia Association  of Parochial and Private Schools - contacted Tattnall about using its gym for state cheerleading, and then for state basketball. Soon enough, discussion surpassed that.
            “It was through those conversations that I even found out” about the GICAA’s plans, with Todd Hannon, the president and founder, moving to the executive board. “It found me. I wasn’t looking.”
            Still …
            “I’m not going to another athletic director job,” Whetsel said. “I’m going to a different animal. … The bottom line is that director’s opportunities don’t come along often.”
            The GICAA is in its sixth year, and sanctions the normal list of sports, along with bass fishing, archery, shotgun, plus eight-man football to go with 11-man football.
            There are more than 200 members, with many “associate” members, including FPD, which is the GICAA and GISA state clay target champion. Other GHSA “associate” members include Westfield, Trinity Christian-Sharpsburg, and Hebron Christian, among others.
            Central Georgia members include Central Fellowship, Central Georgia Arts & Athletics, Covenant, Fullington, John Hancock, Twiggs Academy, Sinclair Christian Academy in Milledgeville, Westwood Christian Academy in Thomaston, and Windsor.
            Whetsel, as the director, will be able to work at home rather than move to Fayetteville, where the GICAA office is. That works, since he’ll mostly be on the road talking to prospective members and current members, which includes a growing home-school constituency.
            “We’d like to grow our numbers and solidify the brands,” Whetsel said. “And hopefully make it more attractive to other schools to join.
            “We’re not headhunting, but if there’s an opportunity to have a conversation, a school wants to look at us, the door is open.”
            As with all coaching jobs, there are parts Whetsel will and won’t miss. This is the first time in 10 years he’s not coaching one of his daughters, but his son is a junior at Tattnall.
            So Whetsel prepares for quite the transition.
            “Next year,” he said, “I’ll be a Tattnall parent.”