Georgia: Favors, Armstrong Earn POY Honors

South Atlanta blue chipper, Wesleyan standout are named state's top basketball players; McFerrin puts aside retirement for Jefferson football job.

Derrick Favors of South Atlanta and Wesleyan's Ann Marie Armstrong earned the Tipoff Club's boys and girls Georgia Player of the Year award.

Favors, a Georgia Tech commitment, averaged 27.5 points and 13.3 rebounds per game as a senior and put up 38 points when his Hornets won the Class AAA title last week. Armstrong ,a University of Georgia commitment, won the award for the second year in a row as her 18.3 points per game average led the Wolves to their third title in four years.

Derrick Favors, South Atlanta

Photo By Jim Redman

Tamika Willis of Westlake and Lorenzo Brown of Centennial won the girls and boys awards, respectively, for Metro Atlanta Players of the Year. Willis, also a Georgia commitment, scored over 1,000 points in her high school career. Brown, a North Carolina State commitment, is Centennial's all-time leading scorer.

State and Metro awards were given out for coach of the year as well. Boys State Coach of the Year went to Michael Reddick of South Atlanta. Kathy Richey-Walton of Southwest Dekalb took honors on the girls' side.

The Merto Boys Coach of the Year went to Tyrone Johnson of Whitefield Academy and the Metro Girls Coach of the Year went to Jan Azar of Wesleyan.

Football: New hires at Mountain View, Jefferson and Lanier County

Mountain View High School, a Lawrenceville school that will open this fall, has hired Wheaton college offensive coordinator Tim Hardy to be its first head football coach, according to a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“My sons played for him in college, so I’ve been able to see him first-hand and know he’s a great man of character with a great style of coaching,” Mountain View athletic director Jimmy Chupp told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Wheaton is a great college program to mirror a high school program.”

Hardy spent nine seasons coaching at Wheaton after he played quarterback there, winning the offensive player of the year award in 1998. A Division III school Illinois, Wheaton College reached the national semifinals last season.

Former South Gwinnett coach and 300-game winner T. McFerrin also decided that his 2004 retirement was not final. He has accepted the job as head coach at Jefferson High School earlier this week.

McFerrin walks into a good situation as Jefferson is coming off of an 11-1 season and Region 8-AA championship.

Lanier County also hired a new head coach in Wade Beale, who coached previously at Sprayberry High School and Chamblee High School.