RePublic won't have football in 2020, Green Hill to pick up its schedule

RePublic High School will not field a football team in 2020 and its scheduled games will be transferred to first-year Wilson County program Green Hill High.

A press release sent by RePublic on Monday morning stated that the program "struggled to gain momentum during its five-year history with facility development being a key issue."

“Though it was incredibly difficult, this decision is best for our school while keeping our students safe and our athletics program aligned to our mission of preparing students for college," RePublic principal Matthew Dempsey said.

"We will look into other options for our football players to stay active during the fall season without a football program. All of our other sports teams and co-op programs will remain in place for the 2020-2021 academic year.”

Low numbers were an issue for the Class 1A Trail Blazers in 2019. Among the team's nine losses, one was a forfeit to Region 5-3A foe Pearl-Cohn because of lack of numbers to field a roster.

The Trail Blazers started the 2019 season with 40 players but were down to just 20 by the end of the season.

Another issue was adequate practice space. "Not having adequate practice space or game facilities is difficult enough, but this also affected the school’s ability to keep coaches and players," the release said.

RePublic played its games at the Stem Academy facility

RePublic went 0-9 last season, being outscored 369-38. The team went 0-9 in its first varsity season in 2017. The Trail Blazers bounced back to go 5-6 the following year, including 2-4 in Region 4-1A. Because of attendance numbers at the school, the program moved to Class 3A last season.

Green Hill, which will open in the fall, hired Josh Crouch as its first head coach in January. The Hawks will not be placed in a region until 2021 and were expected to play just a junior varsity schedule in 2020. 

However, picking up RePublic's games will allow Green Hill to play a varsity schedule right off the bat.

Those games include home games against Clarksville Academy (Aug. 21), Whites Creek (Sept. 4),  FRA (Sept. 25), Giles County (Oct. 16) and East Nashville (Oct. 30) and road games vs. Hillwood (Aug. 28), Goodpasture (Sept. 11) Pearl-Cohn (Sept. 18) and Stratford (Oct. 2). The Hawks will also play at Lakeway Christian on Oct. 23.

Crouch said the team was originally looking at having to travel to Memphis (twice), Chattanooga, Knoxville, Kentucky and Georgia in order to field a varsity schedule in 2020.

"Obviously travel was going to be substantial in year one," said Crouch, who was an assistant at Wilson Central from 2012-17 and St. George's the past two seasons. "This (opportunity) came up in March. We started having conversations with RePublic that they were going to have the tough decision of folding the program.

"This gives us the opportunity to stay local and have our parents and fans travel to watch football as a community. it gives us excitement to have a full 10-game schedule in year one."

Green Hill will have a stadium with artificial turf ready to go for the 2020 season.

Restarting the RePublic program could be a possibility in the future.

“Per TSSAA guidelines updated last week, we will review our football program after the required two-year waiting period, which will be ahead of the 2022-2023 school year," Dempsey said.

Reach Cecil Joyce at cjoyce@dnj.com or 615-278-5168 and on Twitter @Cecil_Joyce.