Mark Smith had short life in Macon sports
Mark Smith High School, named for the Bibb County school superintendent who served from 1941 until 1958, had just a five-year life span.
The school opened in 1965 and was known as Mark Smith through the 1969 school year before merging with H.S. Lasseter Girls High School and Peter G. Appling to form Northeast as part of desegregation.
The highlight of its five-year athletics history was winning the 1969 GHSA Class AAA boys basketball championship, beating heavily favored Carver of Columbus 72-71 at Alexander Memorial Coliseum in Atlanta in double overtime. Carver had beaten the Bulldogs by 18 points in the region final two weeks earlier.
The Bulldogs’ biggest football win ever came in the second season when they turned back the historic Lanier Poets 35-14. It was the first game between the schools and produced Mark Smith’s only win over its crosstown rival in four meetings.
It was an especially sweet win for Mark Smith head coach and athletics director Minton Williams, who had been a baseball and basketball standout at Lanier two decades earlier. After graduating from Lanier, he went on to play both sports at Georgia before getting into the coaching ranks.
After a brief stint at Cherokee County in Canton, he was an assistant at Dublin for five years before taking over the Irish’s head football job in 1959. In six seasons in Dublin, he compiled a 56-9-3 record while winning state Class A titles in 1959, 1960 and 1963.
In his five years at Mark Smith, Williams had a 23-23-2 record. Against Macon schools, his Bulldogs went 1-3 versus Lanier, 1-2-1 in games against Willingham and was 2-0 against both Peter G. Appling and Ballard-Hudson.
In that lone win over Lanier, the Bulldogs, before a crowd of 8,000 at Porter Stadium, completely dominated play in taking a decisive victory. Mark Smith running back Thomas Edwards set a Region 1-AAA single-game rushing record with 234 yards and three touchdowns.
He scored on runs of 3, 32 and 23 yards and had nine runs of 10 yards or better, and got plenty of help from Bob McDavid. The junior halfback rushed for 160 yards and scored twice. He hit paydirt on a 70-yard run and returned an interception 28 yards for a touchdown in the closing minutes of the game.
Lanier, which trailed 28-0 at halftime, scored once in the third quarter on a 50-yard touchdown pass from Brannon Bonifay to Rex Putnal, and got its final touchdown on a 4-yard pass play from Bonifay to Mixon Robinson.
The following week, Lanier defeated Willingham 21-7, giving Mark Smith its first and only city football championship with a 1-0-1 mark. In addition to the win over Lanier, Smith battled Willingham to a tie at 14. Lanier was l-l and Willingham 0-1-1.
While Mark Smith never produced an all-state player, the Bulldogs had six players sign major college football scholarships: kicker Cam Bonifay, defensive end Mike Kitchens and linebacker John Skalko all went to Georgia Tech, defensive end J.W. McKinnie went to Florida State.
And running back Bob McDavid and offensive tackle Craig Hertwig to the Georgia.
McDavid and McKinnie were the only Mark Smith players to ever play in the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association all-star game. They were on the winning South team in the 1968 game played at Porter Stadium.
Hertwig was a three-year letterwinner at Georgia, earning All-America honors his senior season before spending three seasons in the NFL with the Detroit Lions.
Contact Bobby Pope at bobbypope428@gmail.com.
This story was originally published October 28, 2014 at 10:54 PM with the headline "Mark Smith had short life in Macon sports ."