While state championships can be proven annually within the various venues of competition, national titles are significantly less tangible on the high school front.

Derrick Davis is back home.

When JoJo Tillery steps on to the field at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio, this Saturday night for a United States Football League semifinal round game, the former East Ridge High School star will do his best to make his hometown proud.

Having helped build the Arts & Sciences athletic programs from the ground up, Mark Dragoo is retiring after 33 years as the school's athletic director.

The proof of their influence is visible in the lives of the thousands of teenage girls they mentored as high school coaches.

What's good for Rhyne Howard could wind up being good for not only the Atlanta Dream but the WNBA.

Sharon Fanning-Otis refuses to identify the guilty party. Nor will she give up the name of the institution of higher learning the neanderthal administrator worked for. But she has never forgotten the words or the sentiment connected to them.

Here's a look at the Chattanooga area's top nine female athletes since Title IX was enacted 50 years ago.

After pouring every ounce she could into GPS' softball program, Ansley Blevins has a tremendous amount to show for her dedication to the game.

Baylor School offensive lineman Brycen Sanders, who revealed his nonbinding commitment this week to Lane Kiffin and the Ole Miss Rebels, is the seventh Chattanooga-area football player in the last 15 years to be pegged among the state's top-10 prospects by 247Sports.com.

Brycen Sanders' first Division I football scholarship offer came from Ole Miss shortly after his sophomore season.

When this country quite rightly celebrates the 50th anniversary of Title IX on June 23, one could understand if former Notre Dame High School and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga baseball pitcher John Sellman might be less than thrilled to honor the occasion.

A little more than six weeks from now, Baylor School offensive lineman Brycen Sanders will begin preseason practices for the final time as a prep football player.

The post appeared on a University of Georgia parents Facebook page a couple of weeks ago. The mother of a UGA student wrote: "My daughter had to go all the way to Italy to meet Stetson Bennett."

University of Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett's advice to area high school athletes among the more than 800 people in attendance for Wednesday night's annual Times Free Press Best of Preps awards banquet was simple.

The stage is set and the spotlight will shine on hundreds of the Chattanooga area's top high school athletes and coaches as the annual Best of Preps awards banquet returns to an in-person event Wednesday evening.

Mandi Munn can walk away from the softball diamond with a sense of peace.

Whether it was winning multiple state championships, gaining recognition across Georgia or Tennessee as one of the best in their chosen sport or simply being a rare multisport athlete, the finalists for this year's Best of Preps Scrappy Moore Male Athlete of the Year award all have impressive resumés.

Multisport excellence is the common theme among the finalists for this year's Best of Preps Scrappy Moore Female Athlete of the Year award, with five of the six earning all-star recognition in more than one sport.

With this newspaper's Best of Preps banquet approaching its 25-year anniversary heading into Wednesday night's edition at the Chattanooga Convention Center, the magic moments from past guest speakers can blur a bit.

This past school year will go down as perhaps the greatest in McCallie sports history.

Winning a state championship, whether expected or unlikely, proved to be the baseline for becoming a finalist for this year's Best of Preps Scrappy Moore Coach of the Year award.

The coaching search for Marion County High School's football program took very little time.