Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame Series: Brian Knighton, the epitome of a scholar-athlete
MOULTRIE – Brian Knighton holds the Colquitt County High football team’s record for the longest run from scrimmage, 98 yards.
He led the region in rushing twice and twice was named to the All-Region first team. He started at running back for two seasons at Fort Valley State and was named all-conference.
Still, humble as he is, he will let you know that he was an honor graduate at both Colquitt County and at Fort Valley.
And the reason he mentions it is not because of any sort of vanity. No, it’s to remind young players of the reason that they are in school, whether high school or college, is to get an education.
He insists that they can both make the grades and put in the time in the weight room and practice field.
And Knighton is an example of an athlete who has left the Moultrie area to play football and get an education then returned home to pass on what he has learned.
Since his playing days ended, he has been in Colquitt County as a teacher, coach, assistant principal and, this year, the principal of Stringfellow Elementary.
“It’s an honor to be the principal at Stringfellow,” he said this week. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“When I look at those kids, I see myself.”
Both for his ability as a football player and for what he has given back to his hometown, Knighton will be inducted into the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 25.
Joining him are fellow former Packer football players Matt Parker, Brian Jordan and former teammate Sherard Reynolds; “Voice of the Packers” Durwood Dominy; basketball players Sarah Edwards and Britney Wetherington Mobley; and track athletes Amy Paine Hines and Armanti Jamal Hayes.
The Hall of Fame also will honor the 1963 state runner-up football team and the Riverside Cotton Mill baseball team.
The banquet will be held at the Colquitt County High School cafeteria. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce and Modern Cleaners.
The honorees will also be introduced on the sideline facing the home stands on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium before the Oct. 26 Region 1-7A football game between Colquitt County and Lowndes.
Knighton learned as a youngster that he was faster than the other boys his age and enjoyed playing football in the church yard.
He played in the Moultrie-Colquitt County Parks and Recreation Department’s youth league for the Hawgs and learned early on an important football lesson.
In a game against the Baby Rams, the ball was tossed to him and he fumbled it. Not used to being unable to handle the football, instead of jumping on it, he put his head down and headed for the sidelines.
His coaches made sure he understood he was supposed to recover dropped footballs.
“That was a valuable lesson,” he said. “I learned what a valuable thing the football was. I learned I was supposed to protect it with my life.”
He proceeded to carry the football with much more purpose during his two years with the Hawgs and then with Colquitt County’s eighth-grade team coached by Ken Wilson.
That eighth-grade team was undefeated. Knighton said the boys began believing they could be something special.
The group also went undefeated the next year.
When he moved to the varsity as a sophomore on the 2000 team, he began to realize the importance of making sure he kept up with his classwork.
“The main thing my mother said to me was to finish school and get your education,” he said.
He soon was taking handoffs and catching passes under the ever-vigilant eye of backfield coach James Stancil.
“He just brought out the best in you,” Knighton remembers. “You didn’t get any better than James Stancil. He taught me the fundamentals and he taught the intricacies. You had to learn to run, block, catch the football. He taught ball security.
“If you didn’t block, you didn’t play. He coached with energy and passion and he took care of us.”
When Knighton moved on to Fort Valley State, he carried what Stancil, himself a Colquitt County Sports Hall of Famer, instilled in him.
“When we hit the field, we were ready,” he says. “I’ll forever be grateful for what he’s done and the legacy he’s left.”
Knighton carried just 11 times for 41 yards as a sophomore in 2000, but he had a more prominent role the next season gaining 702 yards and leading the region in rushing in the newly installed wing-T offense.
He was lukewarm about the offense. But it was out of the wing-T that he set a Packers record that still stands.
The Packers were backed up to their own 2-yard line at Hugh Mills Stadium in a game against Dougherty. The call was belly down right.
“I remember thinking, ‘Coach (Ben) Wiggins, you’re really going to run belly from the goal line?’” Knighton says.
When he took the handoff, the hole at right tackle was jammed up. He cut back against the grain and found some room to run.
“I just remember thinking, ‘I’ve got to run north and south,’” he says. “Then, ‘Hey, I’ve got to kick it into high gear.’”
And he did, outrunning the Trojans 98 yards for a record-setting touchdown.
He also scored Colquitt County’s other touchdown that game on short burst after Anthony Ferrer’s 71-yard run to the Trojans’ 1.
The Packers won 14-12.
Knighton says he can’t believe the record hasn’t been broken.
“I figured if Tevin (King) or Sihiem (King) ever got the ball on the 1, that record’s going to be shattered,” he says.
Knighton also had an 80-yard touchdown run in a victory over Bainbridge later in the season. He went on to have an even better senior year, rushing for 807 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2002. He scored three touchdowns in the game against Dougherty that year.
His senior season ended in an extremely frustrating fashion. In a game that would determine which team got the region’s final playoff spot, the Packers led Tift County in Tifton 28-14 on a 30-yard touchdown pass from Montgomery Slaughter to Sherard Reynolds with 4:37 left in the third quarter.
But quarterback Josh Allen rallied the Blue Devils to a 35-28 victory.
“That game was hard to swallow,” Knighton said. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over that loss.”
Knighton finished his Packers career with 1,550 rushing yards, another 279 on 17 pass receptions, and 18 touchdowns.
In addition to first-round playoff loses to Warner Robins in 2000 and Westside-Macon in 2001 and the failure to make the playoffs in 2002, Knighton does have one small regret about his high school career.
“I’d love to have gained a thousand yards (in a season),” he says. “But it was tough playing against some of those defenses. They were stout.”
Knighton fulfilled one of his goals the next spring when he was named a Colquitt County High School Honor Graduate.
He knew he would go to college and earn a degree, but he also wanted to continue his football career.
He had an offer from McNeese State in Lake Charles, La., but when that did not work out, he put together a highlight tape and sent it to several schools.
“I knew that if I could just get a chance, I’d be able to out-work the next man,” he said. “I’d have the work ethic.”
And one day, he heard from Fort Valley State offering him a preferred walk-on spot on its football roster.
Knighton was not offered a scholarship because he received Georgia’s HOPE grant that paid his tuition. It would continue to through his four years at Fort Valley.
As a freshman, Knighton was one of two players to make the Wildcats’ traveling squad, mostly because of his speed on special teams.
He didn’t see much time as a sophomore either, playing behind Derrick Wimbush, the SIAC Player of the Year in 2004 who went on to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But he spent those two seasons working on his grades, making the Dean’s List each season.
“I knew my mother would kill me if I lost HOPE,” he said.
In 2005, he finally got his chance and enjoyed playing in Fort Valley’s I-based offense, rushing for 618 yards and scoring seven touchdowns.
In an injury-marred senior season, his numbers were not as impressive. He gained just 591 yards, but he was named to the All-SIAC first team.
He was the conference’s Player of the Week when he rushed for 154 yards and scored a touchdown in Fort Valley’s 16-10 double-overtime victory over Benedict.
“I enjoyed those two years,” he says. “I had a great career at Fort Valley. It was a blessing.”
During the summers while he was at Fort Valley, he continued to take classes and graduated in 2007 with an undergraduate degree in business administration with a concentration in management.
When he returned to Moultrie, he planned to put those degrees to work.
He talked to Colquitt County Superintendent of Schools Leonard McCoy, who sent him to Odom Elementary, his alma mater, where Principal James Harrell offered him a job. He spent that year getting certified in special education. The next year, he was teaching half-days at Stringfellow and half-days at Cox.
He was soon coaching football, wrestling and track at the middle school, earning his master’s in special education and his six-year degree in leadership.
Knighton was an assistant principal for three years before being named principal at Stringfellow this year.
He says he misses football, but knows he is making a significant contribution to a community that supported him. He continues to remind young athletes about the importance of studying hard, getting a degree and, if given a chance to go to college, to making the best of it.
He is looking forward to taking his family, including wife Shameka and 3-month-old daughter Brooklyn, to the Hall of Fame banquet.
“It’s such an honor to be inducted with such talented people, great people like Mr. Durwood and Sherard and Matt Parker and Brian Jordan, Miss Britney and the others,” he said. “It really is an honor.”