Cedar Grove girls’ basketball coach Shenetria Wyche (center) stands proudly with two of her three signees Leanna Ramos (left) and Jayda Jackson (right).
Senior student athletes from DeKalb County School District picked up 173 scholarships involving 10 sports and totaling an estimated $6.37 million towards furthering their educations during the 2017-18 school year.
The scholarships include 103 colleges from 27 states. Georgia was the leader with 21 colleges signing 41 athletes followed by Alabama (13 colleges, 26 signees), Tennessee (10 colleges, 12 signees) and Florida (8 colleges, 13 signees). The colleges range as far north as New Hampshire and west to California.
Colleges that are participating at the Division I (FBS, FCS) level make up one third of the schools with 31 being represented.
DeKalb had72 football players sign early and with 18 coming since the February National Signing Day for a total of 90 to account for the bulk of the scholarships at an estimated $3.76 million. Seventeen of those scholarships were accounted for by Tucker High School while 10 went to Stephenson and eight each to Columbia, Lithonia, Miller Grove and Southwest DeKalb.
Basketball was the next highest with 27 players (15 girls, 12 boys) combining for approximately $976,000 in scholarship money. Miller Grove (4 boys, 1 girls) and Cedar Grove (4 girls, 1 boy) each had five sign basketball scholarships this year. Columbia (3 boys) and Tucker (3 girls) were next in line with basketball signees.
The 2018 Southwest DeKalb Panther football signing class.
Girls’ (12) and boys’ (8) track combined for 20 scholarships signed in 2018 reached just over $525,000 for continued education for the students. Arabia Mountain led the way with four track scholarship (3 girls, 1 boy) followed by Cedar Grove (all boys) and Druid Hills (2 boys, 1 girls) with three each.
Redan led the way in baseball scholarships with a county-wide high 9 players signing on the dotted line. DeKalb totaled 16 baseball signees in all for over $450,000 in funding for their educations.
Soccer (4 boys, 3 girls) and girls’ fastpitch softball (6) had over $157,000 and $105,000 in scholarship money.
Boys and girls lacrosse ($55,000), wrestling ($42,000), girls’ volleyball ($28,000) and girls’ tennis ($8,000) round out the sports that DeKalb athletes received scholarships for the upcoming fall.
Note: All scholarship totals are estimated based on numbers given at time of signing.
See link below for list of signees: