Two new local football programs are on the cusp of joining the varsity ranks, while another has folded.

Signal Mountain and Chattanooga Christian will play junior varsity schedules this year and become varsity programs in 2009. While they have taken different approaches to building teams, neither gave much attention to this decade’s rise and demise of Tennessee Temple, which prospered and then withered.

“I never really looked at Tennessee Temple,” Signal Mountain principal Eddie Gravitte said. “I knew the interest was here. I saw what was going on with the middle school program, which had changed dramatically from when I was coaching 10 years ago.”

When Gravitte applied for membership in the TSSAA, Ronnie Carter, the organization’s executive director, suggested a year of junior varsity competition because most potential opponents were tied up in the second year of two-year contracts.

“It worked out well,” Gravitte said. “The bulk of the team is ninth- and 10th-graders, and I really didn’t want to put them out there against 11th- and 12-graders.”

Chattanooga Christian put a plan in place while Temple was in the midst of a postseason drive.

“We wanted to take it in a four-year plan to become a varsity football program,” CCS athletic director John Visser said, “and we wanted to do it in a way that we could afford it economically as a school.”

Kevin Skogen, who was Tennessee Temple’s co-head coach, said the Crusaders never really had an organizational model.

“There wasn’t a solid plan in place,” said Skogen, who severed ties with the school two years ago. “Part of the problem was confusion about whose responsibility it was to create the plan. When we had been in it a couple of years, Steve Beard (the other head coach) and I came up with a general plan. The administration got behind it in a verbal sense, but there was no implementation and they didn’t have the financial resources to follow it.

“When Steve and I left, they had abandoned the plan. We were a ship out there floating around with no rudder and no wind. I don’t want to sound overly critical, but the administration obviously had concerns elsewhere.”

Skogen commended Visser and the CCS administration.

“I think they could write a book about how to establish a program,” Skogen said. “They moved slowly and that’s why they will end up with a successful program, and I could say the same thing about Grace Academy.”

Temple started with an eighth-grade class with hopes of building around success.

“We needed the publicity,” Skogen said. “We had a booster club, but it was a booster club without resources. And then Silverdale (Baptist) and Grace came along. They had facilities. We practiced on a vacant lot and had to hope we wouldn’t get run over by a fire engine.

“We developed on the field, but we never were able to develop off the field to attract people that wanted to send their kids to a private school.”

While Signal Mountain, the newest public high school in Hamilton County, inherited a middle school program that had once again begun to prosper, CCS started from scratch two years ago with a seventh- and eighth-grade program.

“Two years ago when I got here, the plan was pretty much in place for the time frame of when we would play on Friday nights. The plan fit our school perfectly,” CCS coach Barry Loyal said.

Both new schools are beyond Temple in terms of facilities, although Signal Mountain coach Bill Price had to practice his team early this season at the old middle school field off Taft Highway.

That was changing. The Eagles have two practice fields, one for the middle school and another for the high school. Sod was laid on the game field and visitor stands were erected last week. Funds for the sod, lighting, stands and a press box were donated.

The JV Eagles’ first game will be at the old middle school to give the sod a chance to take root, but other games will be played at night — many of them on Fridays — and Price said excitement surrounds the program.

“We won’t have home stands this year and we’ll probably only be able to seat about 1,000, but there is a lot of interest in the program,” he said.

Although Signal won’t add a senior class until next year, Price has 57 players on the roster, including 28 freshmen. The Eagles wound up drawing athletes from Red Bank, Baylor, CCS, Notre Dame, David Brainerd and Brainerd, among others, and Price anticipates a four-class roster of 65-70 next year.

“With the addition of the high school, football games last year at the middle school took on an almost carnival atmosphere, and they were having a good year,” Gravitte said. “I knew the commitment was there in the community, and I have seen interest in the program and the level of participation grow since Bill came on board and started preseason workouts last spring.”

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