The 14th Annual MaxPreps Tour of Champions presented by the Army National Guard passed through Florida on Tuesday, February 19 to recognize
Mandarin (Jacksonville, Fla.) High School and its football team for winning a state championship and earning a high national ranking.
Photo By Precision Sports Entertainment
One of only 50 football programs across the country to receive an invitation to this year's Tour of Champions, Mandarin upended Columbus 37-35 in the
FHSAA Class 8A state championship contest. With the win, the 11-4 Mustangs recovered from a 2-8 record in 2017 to claim their first state football title and earned the No. 48 ranking in
MaxPreps' National Rankings!
MaxPreps and the Florida Army National Guard were on hand to celebrate Mustang Football at a pep rally in the school's gymnasium. Mandarin's cheerleaders and the pep band opened the ceremony by generating some good old fashioned school spirit, and performing some of Mandarin's favorite pep songs for an already fired up Mustang Nation.
Mandarin athletic director Brian Rado kicked off the presentation portion of the celebration by thanking the school and all 1,800 students, staff and guests in attendance for their support throughout the season before introducing each member of the Mustangs to the continuous roar of the crowd.
MaxPreps representative Dawn Santo summarized Mandarin's fantastic football season and congratulated the Mustangs on their Class 8A State Championship before introducing Staff Sergeant Deborah Shearer of the Florida Army National Guard. SSG Shearer spoke briefly about teamwork, hard work and dedication, shared character traits of the Florida Army National Guard and a state championship football team before presenting head coach Bobby Ramsay and the Mustangs with the prestigious Army National Guard national ranking trophy and a nationally ranked rafter banner.
Earning a Top 50 ranking out of close to 17,000 football teams nationwide is a major achievement! Congratulations to Coach Ramsay and the Mustangs on a job well down. Your hard work and dedication to your team, school and the community has paid off. We look forward to many more state championship seasons!
Click
here to view the Mandarin TOC photo gallery and for more information about the Football TOC, please visit the
MaxPreps Tour of Champions site.
Photo By Precision Sports Entertainment