Sports

East Paulding Sending Two to State of Tennessee

Raiders teammates are set to remain teammates at Tusculum.

Fans of the East Paulding High Raiders football team will have two reasons to keep their eyes on Tusculum College this fall.

The school witnessed two of its seniors, Folorunsho Johnson and Jonathan Lytle, sign their letters of intent to the Greeneville, Tenn. college Wednesday on National Signing Day. The two were part of the team that had this fall an 8-2 overall record (4-2 in Region 5-AAAA North).

“Both of them were program kids that just developed their skills as they went on. Both of them mainly are being recruited for defensive play,” East Paulding Head Football Coach John Reid said Wednesday morning. “Jonathan is a defensive end and had numerous sacks and some tackles for loss and so forth, and he’s a big strong kid—he helped our team be a good team. And Folo [Folorunsho’s nickname] … is a corner, a defensive back, so his contribution was he kept people from scoring touchdowns on passes.

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“And they’re both strong, they did a good job in the weight room, and they’re good kids, and that’s eventually what [leads] somebody to want to give you money to go to their college,” Reid added.

Johnson, who played for the Raiders during his last two years of high school after playing his first year at McEachern, said he hopes to stay in his position at corner at Tusculum but might jump into special teams. He also said he hopes to pursue a major in business accounting.

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“I chose Tusculum over the other schools because I felt like Tusculum had a great football program, they have a good DB coach, they have a nice campus. I feel like they were just a better option for me and my family, and it’s close to home,” Johnson said.

Lytle, who played all four years at East Paulding, said he hopes to pursue sports medicine or physical therapy. He said the availability of those majors and the acceptable driving distance to the college were just two of the factors that led him to his decision.

“After going up there on a visit and seeing their facilities and seeing how they’re in one of the toughest Division II conferences in the nation, I decided it would be a good move for me, and seeing that I was going with another teammate, it just worked out perfectly,” Lytle said, adding that he hopes to transfer after a year to a Division I school.


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