Georgia Public Broadcasting is going to ROCK the Dome!

Note: this appears in the GHSA program that will be handed out at the Georgia Dome at next week's state championships.

Five teams celebrated state football titles last season and for the first time, those celebrations all occurred on the floor of the Georgia Dome. High school football fans living around the state of Georgia got to share in the celebration in their homes as once again Georgia Public Broadcasting was there to broadcast the GHSA state championship games live from the Georgia Dome. Back in 1992, the GHSA and GPB decided to form a television partnership, and by 1997 GPB was airing state semi-finals and some of the championship games. Last season the GHSA elected to move the state semi-final location from the Dome to home sites while moving the actual title games from the school campuses to the Georgia Dome, normally the home of the Atlanta Falcons and the SEC Championship Game. Despite the move in venue, residents of Georgia were still able to catch all of the action on GPB. According to Tom Vardase of GPB and Prep Sports+, the move of the championship games to the Dome was a good one. “I believe [the games] were a success.”

The finals brought a few new twists opposed to prior years’ coverage of the semi-finals. New graphics were developed by GPB and implemented for the games. “You want the look to be as nice as you can get…but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” Vardase says that he watches how Ray Com produces its weekly game, and he tries to use similar ideas. “We do our best to be that way (as professional as NFL and NCAA broadcasts).” This season the state title games will look a little different than last year. Some of the graphics were tweaked for last year and have been even more so for this year’s title tilts. The broadcast will feature new internal graphics as well as a new segment for offensive and defensive players of the game. The latter segment also finds GPB working with the Atlanta Falcons to present those awards. Vardase credits two gentlemen who have been with him since Day One thirteen years ago, for the new looks. Doug Furce produces and directs while Tony Robinson serves as Technical Producer. New talent is also one difference folks might see and hear compared to last year. Former Atlanta Falcon and ten-year NFL vet Harper Lebel will work as a color commentator for one of the championship games while Stu Klitenic will call play-by-play for Class A’s title game. Lebel has been working some high school games in the Gainesville area while Klitenic has been involved in Atlanta sports for some time, even co-hosting the Atlanta Braves pregame radio show. Vardase was also proud to announce that Jeff Van Note is coming back to do color analysis for the Class AAAA and AAAAA games. Van Note is a former Falcon who was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. He has appeared as a color commentator on Falcons broadcasts as well as the University of Kentucky and Georgia Tech football broadcasts.

In the weeks that follow the games, GPB will unveil two new innovations that will help keep the broadcasts, “new and refreshing,” according to Vardase. Prep Sports+ will air two recap shows, one on Thursday, December 17 at 7:30 p.m. and the other Sunday, December 20 at 11 a.m. The second show will be Prep Sports+ 400th original show, something that Vardase is quite proud of. That same week, the GPB Knowledge Channel (Comcast channel 246 in Metro-Atlanta) will rebroadcast all of the games, one each night starting on December 14 with Class A at 8 p.m. This will be a first for GPB as the Knowledge channel affords the opportunity of a two or three hour window that GPTV might not normally have to re-air the games.

Football isn’t the only sports programming found on GPB though. In addition to Prep Sports+, basketball fans can tune in this March for the state basketball championships. Georgia Public Broadcasting has done more than 140 basketball games and will be back this year with eleven games. This March 12 and 13, GPB will air all of the girls and boys state title games as well as the wheelchair championship, presented by the American Association of Adapted Sports Program.

Though there are always hurdles, Vardase knows the rewards are always there as well, and people really enjoy GPB and its broadcasts of the high school championships. Vardase recalls in 1997 going to Thomasville and a fans thanking him. According to Vardase, the fan told him, “You guys did one heck of a job.” After thirteen seasons and over 140 games, this fun likely won’t stop anytime soon.