With controversial legislation pending, GHSA trustees vote for Gary Phillips’ resignation

An already awkward situation involving the Georgia High School Association, its executive director Gary Phillips and the state legislature could be getting even more messy after the GHSA Board of Trustees voted Monday to recommend Phillips resign his position at the end of the school year, according to a published report.

Monday’s action by the board, which came by a 5-3 vote, will be considered and voted on, along with other personnel issues, by the GHSA’s Executive Committee at a meeting next Monday at the Thomaston-Upson County Civic Center.

Phillips, who has been the executive director since 2014, has agreed to retire at the end of the 2016-17 school year if the GHSA honors his contract through 2018 according to published reports.

The board of trustees vote may be related to the introduction of House Bill 415 and Senate Bill 203 to the state legislature.

Those identical measures would propose the GHSA be replaced by a new statewide body to govern high school athletics, band and literary competitions to be overseen by the state board of education, according to published reports.

HB 415 passed through the House education committee Monday and is headed for the rules committee, where it could be passed on to the house floor for a vote. SB 203, meanwhile, is making its way through Senate committees.

Georgia Senator Greg Kirk, who represents Sumter County, Lee County and Worth County, is the third-co-signer of the bill. The Senate was in session and Kirk couldn’t be reached for comment.

Senator Bruce Thompson of Cartersville (14th District), introduced the Senate version of the bill, while Rep. John Meadows of Calhoun (5th District) introduced the House version.

The flurry of activity by both houses in the general assembly and the GHSA’s board of trustees has given much for the executive committee to discuss.

“This is a pivotal time for the GHSA,” said Worth County principal Harley Calhoun, who represents Region 1-AAA on the executive committee. “I would like to get more information about Mr. Phillips’ resignation to be able to have some time for a decision. After everybody gets a chance to say what they’re going to, three points we need to consider, are 1) more information about Gary’s resignation, 2) more definitive details concerning the House and Senate bills on creating a new athletic association and, 3) the foreseeable of the GHSA concerning the recent events.”

The GHSA, and Phillips specifically, has come under much criticism involving a variety of topics in recent years.

Perhaps the most vocal of the criticism was triggered by problems involving last year’s state basketball tournament championship games, including misaligned baskets and gaps in the portable floor at the Macon Centreplex, which prompted the GHSA to move this year’s finals to McCamish Pavilion at Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia’s Stegeman Coliseum.

Calhoun said he wasn’t prepared to decide which way he might vote at next Monday’s executive committee meeting, at least not until he had more information available to him.

Nor was he certain if a vote to remove Phillips — who has been with the GHSA for the past 15 years, the last two as executive director — would affect how, or even if, the two bills in the legislature would proceed.

Herald sports editor Tim Morse contributed to this report.