VALDOSTA — Today, the future of the state football championship games will be decided.

High school football teams around the state will be awaiting the decision being made at the Holiday Inn in Forsyth, where the Georgia High School Association will be voting on whether to keep the state championship games at one of the two competing high schools, or move it to a neutral site, likely Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.

The GHSA made a motion in March to vote on the issue, and today, the GHSA’s football committee will be casting that vote in Forsyth.

The issue is a hotly-contested one, and in South Georgia, the opinion is nearly unanimous: keep things the way they are.

Local coaches Jim Dickerson of Clinch County, Randy McPherson of Lowndes and Rick Darlington of Valdosta have all coached in state championship games, and all are heavily against moving the games to the Dome, or anywhere else.

“I am dead set against it,” McPherson said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think every team should be entitled to at least having a chance to host the state championship game in their stadium. I know when the state championship game is played here, it’s a big deal to this community.”

“I’m real opposed to it,” Darlington said. “I don’t want it played in the Dome every year. I’d rather play it in someone else’s stadium than in the Dome. In a game like that, there’s an electricity in a high school stadium that you wouldn’t have in the Dome.”

“Personally, I like having it at the high schools,” Dickerson said. “The Dome’s great and all, but you don’t have the same electricity there. The state championship game at Hawkinsville last year was the best football atmosphere I’ve ever been in.”

Darlington even offered, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, an alternative proposal in an interview this week: bring the title game to Valdosta. Make all the North Georgia schools come down here. Valdosta High’s legendary Bazemore-Hyder Stadium, he surmised, was a nice enough stadium for a championship game.

The Georgia Dome is the site of the state semifinals, and has become a good tradition in Georgia, one that the coaches seem to prefer to keep the way it is.

While sympathy for doing things the way they’ve always been done seems to be the driving force behind not moving the site of the title game, schools have more than that to lose. Like money.

In 2003, Valdosta High made it all the way to the championship game, which the Wildcats hosted at their stadium, Cleveland Field (losing 21-7 to Camden County). Valdosta’s net profit from the game, after all the expenses were taken care of and everybody else got their share, was over $50,0000 — a big chunk of change. The previous week, Valdosta had played Macon Westside in the semifinals at the Dome. Their net profit from that game was around $17,000.

Whether or not moving the title game to the Dome would cost teams that much is debatable, but the checks clearly would be smaller if the move to the Dome was made.

North Georgia schools would stand to benefit the most from the move to the Dome, because they would be guaranteed a short ride for the title game, and would likely be able to get a larger percentage of their fans to make the drive.

Moving the championship game to the Dome or another Atlanta-area site could be especially hard on AAAAA, where some of the best programs are far away from there. In this week’s state high school poll, the top three teams in AAAAA will likely be Lowndes, Camden County and Valdosta. None of the three is located more than 20 miles north of the Florida border, and all three are at least a 225-mile drive from Atlanta. If Valdosta and Lowndes were to ever play each other for the state championship, they’d want to play it in their hometown, not the other end of the state.

Many of the smaller school powers are also located a long way from the Georgia Dome. Class A co-champion Clinch County and Class AA champion Charlton County are also schools very close to the Florida border, and over 200 miles from Atlanta. AAAA champion Warner Robins and Class A co-champion Hawkinsville are both Central Georgia schools, over 100 miles from the Dome. The only reigning state champion within 100 miles of Atlanta is LaGrange (about 70 miles).

The GHSA’s football committee is comprised of chairman Earl Etheridge, Ray Broadaway, Scott Horton, Britt Ingle, Wayne Tootle and Robert Davis. These are the guys who will meet today in Forsyth, and ultimately decide the fate of the proposal.

The group comes from all around the state, and only one is from the Atlanta area. Etheridge is from Savannah and is the region secretary for Region 3-AAAAA, so he has probably heard the concerns of 2003 state champion Camden about the move. Broadaway was a longtime coach at Marietta. Ingle is the football coach at Treutlen, a Central Georgia school.

Davis is the Macon Westside football coach, and was the longtime coach at Warner Robins. Davis won three state championships at Warner Robins, and probably has a better understanding of the differences between playing a big game in a home stadium and playing it in the Georgia Dome than anyone on the committee.

The South Georgians in the bunch are Horton and Tootle. Horton is the head football coach at Albany High. Tootle is the principal of Cairo High. Cairo has made three trips to the Georgia Dome during his time as principal.