Varsity sports and a 10th grade are the latest additions at the growing Delta Streets Ministries.
One year after the all-boys school kicked off its first junior high football season, the team is preparing to play a seven-game varsity season of eight-man football.
Without a regular home field, the team will be on the road all season long, with the first game set for Aug. 29 against Marvell Academy in Marvell, Arkansas. Other matchups will take the squad across Mississippi and as far away as Louisiana.
This winter, the school will also field a varsity basketball team, which will compete in District 4A of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools.
T. Mac Howard, the executive director of Delta Streets Academy and the football team’s head coach, said all his players were very excited for their first varsity season. The team went 4-2 last year in junior high competition.
“It’s definitely changed the way we practice,” Howard said. “There’s much more excitement. It’s going to be fun.”
Howard said the team is already preparing for the season and will start its first practices with pads on Aug. 8.
The school, which was founded in August 2012, had 28 young men in seventh through ninth grade last year and now has added 10th grade.
Howard said the school originally hoped to enroll around 50 students, but it appears that about 40 young men will be attending when classes start with a half-day Aug. 6.
The goal, Howard said, is to add grades over the next two years to ultimately serve students from the seventh through 12th grades.
This year, in order to accommodate the new grade level and extra students, Howard has hired two new staff members: a part-time Spanish teacher and a science teacher who will also help coach football and basketball. This brings the staff to six full-time and three part-time employees.
Howard said the school should also be busy this year preparing for construction and renovation of its future permanent home inside the former Cannon Motor Company location on George Street.
Michael Joe Cannon, owner of Cannon Motor, donated the building to Delta Streets. Fundraising to cover the cost of construction should start up soon, though Howard said firm plans haven’t yet been set.
“We’re hoping to start construction by late December or early January,” Howard said. “We hope to be in that facility by next August.”
In the meantime, the school will continue to hold classes in space provided by the First Baptist Church of Greenwood, which has hosted the academy since the beginning. “They’ve been really generous to allow us to come back for one more year,” Howard said.
