Fannin County High Schools Head Coach Chad Cheatham, born and raised in Fannin County, Ga. takes the floor at a recent Board of Education meeting. A new edition to Fannin County High Schools staff, Coach Cheatham was able to explain in detail his mission for Fannin’s youth.

Coach Cheatham gave a motivating speech as he laid out the foundation of Fannin Rebels mantra: 1) Faith, 2) Family, 3) Academics, and lastly, 4) Football. Is it strange to hear a Head Coach say that football needs to come last on a player’s priority list? Maybe, but Coach Cheatham has his reasons and his reasons are for the overall success of Fannin’s youth.

Coach Cheatham states there’s 4 things student athletes need to pursue excellence in:

“1) Faith: in our Creator, in our team, in our community, in our parents, and in our school system. Faith in believing in the process. And the sacrifice to get there may be hard, but you got to keep the faith.”

“2) Family: A lot of my players don’t go home to mom and dad. They go home to grandma or grandpa, or they go home to foster care. That’s just the state of reality that we are in right now. We focus on family and brotherhood and selfless play for one another. We’re teaching selflessness.”

“3) Academics: Education is the key to every door. 99% of our football players will never play football again but what they’re going to do is go into the workforce. They’re going to enter college, or technical school, or the military and they’re going to be great. And education and academics is the key to their future and we got to make our football players believe that.”

“4) Football: Why is the last thing football? I’ll tell you why. It’s because if you don’t have faith, if you don’t have family, and you don’t have your academics in order you might as well forget football because it isn’t going to happen.”

Coach Cheatham continues, “In order to be successful, you have to take care of the first three: Faith, Family, and Academics. We’re pushing self-discipline with our kids. Are we winning? We’re not winning on the scoreboard [the last two games] but are we winning in the field house and are we winning in their hearts? I think we are.”

It is apparent that Coach Cheatham takes an interest in the well-being of Fannin’s youth. His coaching style seems to motivate and uplift his players to be better people and aspire for greatness and excellence in all that they do. Let’s see what comes of this years football season, but most importantly, let’s what comes of the Rebels football players’ attitudes.