Coming Attraction: John Atkins
October 01, 2015 | Football
Four-Sport Standout Atkins Settles In On Defensive Front
By Preston Smith
More than 40 years after legendary punter Ray Guy put Thomson High School football on the map, fellow alum John Atkins is looking to leave his own legacy in a different way. And while Atkins likely has plenty of punting experience after playing goalie on his high school soccer team, the Georgia nose guard now thrives by stopping the run and getting in the opponent's backfield.
Atkins, a 6-4, 300-pound student-athlete, excelled as a four-sport athlete at Thomson High before settling on playing collegiate football. In addition to football, Atkins competed in the shot put for his track team, played goalie for the soccer team and starred on the basketball team.
"In ninth grade I thought I wanted to be a basketball player," said Atkins. "I was around 220 pounds and that was the first sport I really got into. But then sophomore year I was up to 240 pounds, junior year I went up to 280 and senior year I hit 300, so I definitely saw football as my sport by then."
Throughout his high school career Atkins also made several position changes. After starting out his freshman year as a defensive end, Atkins switched to the offensive line for the majority of his sophomore and junior season before returning to the defensive side for his senior year. But even learning different positions couldn't hide Atkins' rare combination of size and athleticism. By his junior year, colleges started calling.
"My junior year I got my first offer from the University of Massachusetts (UMass), but I didn't know anything about football (recruiting) then," Atkins said. "My coach told me to wait to commit, and then the next week I started getting calls from Florida, Georgia and Alabama, really all of the SEC schools. That's when I knew that football was going to be my way out."
Focusing on one sport or even one position wasn't Atkins' only hurdle in getting to Georgia. In order to gain academic eligibility, Atkins attended Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia for a semester after high school where he starred as a defensive tackle. The ESPNU four-star player racked up 42 total tackles, five tackles for loss, two sacks and a blocked kick in one season with the Tigers. Atkins later lauded the decision to go to Hargrave and credited it with preparing him for the culture at Georgia.
"Looking back at it, going to Hargraves was the best decision I've ever made," the redshirt sophomore said. "Coming into Georgia, I was already used to waking up early in the morning and the workouts. At Hargrave, we had to wake up early every morning and even march to everything."
Since his redshirt year in 2013, Atkins has steadily contributed and earned a starting role this fall on Georgia's defensive line. Atkins has slid in next to Sterling Bailey and Chris Mayes to help fill the void by several graduates from 2014.
"I learned a lot from guys like Ray (Drew), Mike (Thornton) and Toby (Johnson) in my first year," Atkins said. "Seeing them being talked about on television and being around them all of the time really brought the best out of me. Those aren't the type of guys who are going to let you slack off. The redshirt year was very helpful for me."
One extra motivation for Atkins' motor on the field is an ongoing competition with roommate and fellow stalwart on the defensive line, Chris Mayes.
"Chris and I came in together," Atkins said. "Now that we're both out there at the same time playing a lot and living together, there's a lot of competitiveness. In the South Carolina game I was getting tackles, but last week he had a better game. This week we'll both try to outdo one another. It's just fun having a guy beside you that you know is going to work hard, which can really be said for all of my teammates."
The Bulldog defense has played well in the young season, but its toughest test so far will come in the form of this weekend's matchup against Alabama. Atkins and the rest of the Bulldogs take the field on Saturday against the Crimson Tide at 3:30 p.m. EST in Sanford Stadium.
Preston Smith is a senior from Rome, Ga., who is majoring in public relations and also pursuing a Sports Media Certificate within the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Smith, who is in his third year as a student assistant within the UGA Sports Communications office, has spent the last two summers interning with the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) and also was an intern at Augusta National Golf Club in the fall of 2014.
"Coming Attractions" is a weekly feature published on georgiadogs.com spotlighting a UGA student-athlete who will be competing in a key home event during the upcoming weekend. Previous stories from this year include:
August 27 -- Jasmine Eaton (volleyball in the Benson Hospitality Invitational)
September 3 -- Sydney Shultis (soccer vs. Clemson)
September 10 - Liliana Rios (soccer vs. South Carolina)
September 17 -- Isaiah McKenzie (football vs. South Carolina)
September 24 -- Mariel Gutierrez (soccer vs. Arkansas & Texas A&M)
