Emaree Winston named 5A All-State first team tight end
The high school football season has been over for a while now.
But for the Calhoun High School football program, the accolades keep coming and there is a lot of stuff going on.
Besides the obvious of Georgia freshman wide receiver/special teams player Cole Speer representing the city and the county in the College Football Playoff national championship game Monday night against TCU in Los Angeles, there are other honors and notoriety coming in.
But you’ve got to hand it to Speer, who played in six of the Bulldogs’ 14 games this year at receiver as a true freshman and lately, has been a starter on special teams.
The 5A All-State players were also recently announced and the Yellow Jackets were well-represented on that list with sophomore tight end Emaree Winston being named to
the first team and four other players earning honorable mention after Calhoun made it to the third round of the recent GHSA playoffs before
being eliminated by eventual state champion Ware County.
Senior wide receiver/cornerback Cam Curtis, senior offensive lineman
Brody Balliew, junior running back Caden Williams, and junior defensive lineman Kristyane Gregory are the four players that were named All-State honorable mention.
The 6-foot-3, 235-pound Winston, who has been starting at tight end for the Yellow Jackets since the end of his freshman season, is considered one of the top tight ends in the country in his graduating 2025 class and is presently listed as a four-start recruit.
Winston, who also played some defensive end, showed his versatility and ability to really play anywhere he wants towards the end of the season when he was moved into the backfield and took direct snaps in the Wildcat formation.
He was injured late in the Kell game and didn’t play against Ware County. A starter as a freshman on the basketball team last winter as well, he has been unable to play for Calhoun this winter due to the injury.
But the injury hasn’t stopped the college offers from rolling in as powers like Ohio State and Tennessee along with other prominent teams like Cincinnati, Louisville, and Virginia Tech all are wanting to get a verbal commitment from him for now.
The Yellow Jackets were also busy just before the New Year came when several players from the high school and two from the middle school played in the Georgia Elite All-Star game at Barron Stadium in Rome.
Gregory, junior lineman Christian Bell, freshman lineman Sager Quinn, running back Hunter White and freshman lineman Alec Upshaw played in the high school All-Star games to represent Calhoun.
Gregory and Bell both played in the Junior All-Star game back on December 29 while Quinn, White, and Upshaw all played for the freshman
team in the Sophomore vs. Freshman All-Star matchup.
For Calhoun Middle School, wide receiver Hudson Chadwick, who is also a top pitching prospect in baseball in the Class of 2027, and right tackle Jackson Williams represented the Yellow Jackets. Chadwick and Williams are both presently eighth graders at CMS.
And Chadwick made a highlight reel one-handed catch in the game and anyone wanting to see it, can do so by going to the Calhoun football twitter site and simply scrolling down.
When the ball was snapped to the quarterback in the shotgun, the 8th Grade American team had a moving pocket to the right.
The quarterback stopped and gunned a short pass to Chadwick, who reached behind him and made a one-handed snag with his right hand. He pulled it in and then headed upfield for a short gain, but it was still one of the nicest plays of the entire game.
At the high school level, the Yellow Jackets were wellrepresented in the trenches with Bell, Gregory, Quinn and Upshaw all linemen who will play a big role up front once again this fall for the Jackets.
Bell, who played on both offense and defense last year, will be a three-year starter for the Yellow Jackets this season.
Gregory was a first-year starter and had his first career interception in the playoffs, which he returned for a touchdown, to highlight their one-sided victory over Kell in the second round of last year’s GHSA playoffs.
Quinn led the team in sacks and even started the Jackets’ playoff game against Ware County at tight end after Winston went down with his injury, showing he too can play multiple positions.
Quinn finished with nine sacks on the season and also had quite a few quarterback hurries, displaying a great ability to rush the passer for such a young player.
In addition to all that, for the second year in a row, a number of Calhoun assistant football coaches were recognized when Parker Resources announced the 2022 Georgia Class 5A Assistant Coaches of the Year.
Offensive line coach Barry Hall, defensive coordinator Terry Murrow and special teams coach Franco Perkins were the three CHS coaches recognized on the list and it the second consecutive year all three men have earned such honors as they were all recognized for the same award last year.
For Hall, the only Gordon Central graduate to ever play in the National Football League, he once again brought together an offensive line that showed they can hold up against any one in the state.
Before the season started, the offensive line had only one returning starter in Christian Bell, but CHS head coach Clay Stephenson said he wasn’t worried about those guys because he knew that Coach Hall would have that group clicking when they needed too. And that is exactly what happened.
Just five offensive line coaches from across Georgia were named Assistant of the Year and Hall was one of them.
Murrow is the man in charge of an undersized Calhoun defense that swarms to the football and plays like their hair is on fire every time the opposing offense snaps the ball.
Perkins was one of just seven men selected for their work with special teams and the kicking game is a big part of what the Yellow Jackets do.
They confound teams on kickoffs with short kicks, sky kicks, or just flat out onside kicks. They make all their extra points after touchdowns and have good snaps from the center to the holder. They also had an excellent punter this year in sophomore Andrew Purdy, who put the ball down inside the other teams’ 10-yard-line nearly 10 times this year.
So when you drive or walk past Phil Reeve Stadium, all appears quiet. But there is presently a lot of things going on with the Calhoun football program.