Lee County High School on top of the football world

LEESBURG — Steve Glover remembers when the Lee County High School football team used to be everybody’s homecoming opponent.

“One year we were a homecoming opponent five teams,” Glover, Lee County’s Booster Club president, said. “It seemed like everybody scheduled us for homecoming.”

Most schools try to schedule an opponent they can beat for homecoming. With the Trojan program looked upon as nothing more than a doormat, they were just the kind of team other programs wanted to play for homecoming.

But times have changed in Leesburg.

A county known for producing Major League Baseball star Buster Posey, country music singer Luke Bryan and pop star Phillip Phillips, as well as a dominant baseball program, is now known for something else — a powerhouse high school football program.

Lee County will play for its second consecutive state championship Tuesday night. The game against Northside-Warner Robins for the Georgia High School Association Class 6A title will be played Tuesday night at 8 p.m. at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

While the Trojans used to be everyone’s proverbial punching bag on the field, nobody is laughing now. Lee has combined to outscore its opponents 610-77 this year. Just once — in the team’s 24-7 victory over Northside on Oct. 13 — have the Trojans scored less than 25 points in a game. The offense is averaging 350.8 yards per game.

And the defense?

Opponents average less than 100 yards of total offense (97.7 yards per game), including allowing a stout 43.5 yards per game on the ground. Just twice this season has an opponent scored more than seven points. Mundy’s Mill put 13 on the Trojans in the final quarter against mostly substitutes in the first round of the playoffs.

Then in a No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown two weeks ago in the quarterfinals, second-ranked Creekview scored 20.

But in ancient history, Rome was not built in a day. And neither was the Lee County football program.

RIGHT COACH: Glover credits most of the success to the hiring of Dean Fabrizio, a brash assistant from Peach County who was the team’s defensive coordinator. He had coached in central Florida as an assistant at Dr. Phillips, then helped DeLand (Fla.) High, a program that had not won a game before his arrival, post back-to-back winning seasons.

Then he left for Georgia.

Longtime Peach County coach Chad Campbell, who has his team in the Class 3A state championship game, said he met Fabrizio at a coaches clinic in Birmingham. He struck up a friendship with Fabrizio when Campbell said he was looking for the right man to change his defense. Fabrizio followed Campbell back to Fort Valley from the clinic to look at the facilities.

That fall, Fabrizio was Peach County’s defensive coordinator.

There was something about Georgia’s rich football talent, which annually stockpiles the best college programs with blue-chip talent, that lured him here.

“I had a lot of friends who have coached in Georgia, and they always talked about how good it was and how good the situations are,” Fabrizio said. “They talked about how good the pay was along with the quality of life.”

Campbell said Fabrizio was an instant fit.

“He was tough on them, but the kids respected him,” Campbell said. “They knew that he knew football.”

After one season, Fabrizio felt the itch to become a head coach again. He tossed his name for the Lee County job and after selling himself, was offered the job.

“I hadn’t been in Georgia very long, so I probably didn’t know any better,” Fabrizio joked. “I had a couple of kids getting ready to enter school and I knew they had a great school system, and that was a big draw for me. I also realized that they had not had a lot of success footballwise and the more research I did, I didn’t see anything that was precluding them from being successful.

“I mean there wasn’t anything built in that was making it tough. The support I got from (former superintendent Larry Walters) and Kevin Dowling, who was the principal at the time when I was hired, and the school board and the kind of commitment they showed to get all of their athletics to a top-notch level was something that stood out to me. I’ll be honest, a lot of people told me not to take the job, you’ll never win there. But I thought they had the ingredients here to be successful.”

Count Campbell among those who was concerned for his defensive coordinator.

“I was worried about him taking that job,” he said. “Lee had always been a baseball school, and they hadn’t had a lot of success in football. Everybody knows they were not a football power.”

MOVING AHEAD: Fabrizio was taking over a program that had won just one region title in its history, and its deepest postseason penetration was the second round, something the program had done just twice.

The Trojans had finished 0-10 the year before Fabrizio took over. In 2009, his first season, Lee went 2-8.

He and his staff took baby steps.

“We were just trying to win a game,” he said. “We had lost the first five, and we had one of the longest losing streaks in the state. We won a game. Then the next year, we were like, ‘Man, let’s have a winning season.’ Then it was like, ‘Let’s get into the playoffs, then we were like, ‘It would be nice to win a region title, then win back-to-back playoff games.’ “

His second team in 2010 went 7-3 and made the playoffs. While the Trojans slipped in 2011 to 6-4, they have made the postseason every year except for once since. They are 80-35 since 2009 with three region titles and a state championship.

Fabrizio credits his staff for his success, along with what he said is excellent administrative support, as well as strong backing from the community.

“He’s done well,” said Campbell, who lost to Fabrizio’s Trojans 33-0 this season. “He’s gotten the numbers up. He’s one of those guys who is going to get the kids to play hard for him, At the same time, he’s gotten the administrative support and he’s gotten everyone involved. He’s made it a little hotbed, too.”

BUILDING BLOCKS: Fabrizio and his staff’s presence didn’t instantly translate into success. The selling point to the hiring committee was his commitment to academics. Assistant principal Hank Wright, who is now the school’s athletic director, said Fabrizio came in with a plan to win games, but he also knew academics were important, too. Wright wasn’t on the committee, but he was briefed on everything about the new coach.

“The first thing is he had been an AP teacher, so he got the academics part,” Wright said. “He knew players needed to perform well in the classroom, and academics are held in high esteem here. And he knew players needed a high GPA to get into college. It doesn’t matter how good they are if they don’t qualify.”

Fabrizio made his assistants responsible for their players on the academic side. Glover, whose youngest son played under Fabrizio, could attest to the rigorous academic monitoring.

“If a player makes an unsatisfactory grade, the coaches get an email so they can address the grade that day,” Glover said. “Every kid gets support and updates, and the coaches are constantly in contact with parents.”

Karen Hancock, who was the school’s Instructional Supervisor before becoming principal, helped Fabrizio and the coaches on the academic side. That title has since been passed to Megan Elam.

Wright also said the committee was impressed with Fabrizio’s defenses, which attacked the opposing offenses relentlessly. While that was a plus, his third selling point was a big one.

Fabrizio knows that if you’re going to be a successful football coach, public relations and marketing are as integral as coaching games on Friday nights. Almost immediately after taking over, he made a point to become a regular in the community, especially in the youth recreation leagues.

“He built support from there,” Wright said. “He’d show up, identify players and start building relationships from the ground up. It wasn’t hard to get the players at that age to buy in to what he was doing.”

Glover said Fabrizio is seen at other sporting events, supporting not just his football players but other athletes as well.

Fabrizio also put his system in the county’s middle school program. Glover said before Fabrizio’s arrival, middle school coaches ran whatever schemes they wanted. But he said the coach had the younger players running the same schemes as the varsity in middle school, developing a feeder program that was all on the same page.

And he gave the players some perks, such as allowing music to be played during practices.

“It changed the whole atmosphere,” he said.

CHAMPIONSHIP PROGRAM: The Trojans won their first region title in 2013 and made the second round before falling to Mundy’s Mill. But it was a year later that Lee County slowly started to gain attention across the state.

Playing in the state’s largest classification and competing against perennial powers like Colquitt County, Lowndes, Camden County and Valdosta, Lee County beat Lowndes 42-30 a week after they were pummeled at eventual state champion Colquitt County. The Trojans had the smallest enrollment numbers of any school in the classification.

“After we beat Lowndes, the next day I thought, ‘Did we really beat Lowndes or did I dream that?,’ ” Fabrizio said. “It was surreal.”

The next week they went on the road and beat Camden County, which at the time was considered a Georgia powerhouse. Lee County made the state playoffs as a No. 3 seed in 2014 and after winning in the first round, they lost big at Archer the following week. Archer went on play Colquitt County for the state championship.

“I think even back then we were a lot closer than people realized,” Fabrizio said.

Lee missed the playoffs in 2015, then lost a heart-breaking game at Mays in the 2016 playoffs in the second round.

Since that loss at Lakewood Stadium, the Trojans have lost just once — a 31-28 setback to Valdosta in the next-to-last game of the 2017 regular season. Lee County is currently on a school-record 20-game winning streak.

“I’ve had so much support,” Fabrizio said. “From former superintendent Dr. (Larry) Walters to current one Jason Miller, to former principal Kevin Dowling to Karen Hancock, as well as athletic directors Rob Williams and Hank Wright, to the school board, we’ve been very well-supported. I’ve been very lucky to work for an administrative team at LCHS headed up by Dr. Karen Hancock. She does an amazing job supporting our students, teachers and coaches.

“We’ve had great assistants and great players as well as excellent support from the community. I’ve just kind of been along for the ride with all these people making me look good.”

College coaches such as Alabama’s Nick Saban, Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh make annual stops at the school. In the past few seasons, players like quarterback Stephen Collier (Ohio State), defensive linemen Aubrey Solomon (Michigan) and Tory Carter (LSU), offensive lineman Griffin McDowell (Florida) and defensive back Otis Reese (Georgia) are just a handful of the Division I talent Lee County coaches have helped develop.

STAYING AROUND: There are times that Glover wonders if Fabrizio will stay around. With his success in building a football program most didn’t believe was possible, it won’t be far-fetched to hear the coach’s name linked with higher-profile jobs like Buford and Grayson, which have openings for a head coach.

“This is Dean’s program,” Glover said. “And make no mistake, he’s in charge here. He’s OCD and there’s nothing he won’t touch here, from making sure tickets are sold to the concession stand being taken care of to selling T-shirts and hoodies. The running joke around here is we wish he would communicate a little better, send a few more emails and texts. That’s an absolute lie because we’re constantly bombarded with reminders from him.

“He would make an unbelievable CEO in the corporate world.”

And nobody is complaining at Lee County, at least not in the football world.

“The wheels never stop spinning in his head.” Wright said. “Coach Fabrizio always seems to be one step ahead of what’s coming.”

Lee football fans hope he’s at least one step ahead of Northside-Warner Robins Tuesday night, which would make history once again.

Karl L. Moore