GSIAA UPDATE: Lott uses press conference to woo new members, explain bylaws
New GSIAA executive director Glynn Lott provided facts and figures for the new association to a group of reporters at a press conference at Cramton Bowl on Thursday. The new league will officially open to memberships on Nov. 1, 2026. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Glynn Lott was formally introduced as the executive director of the Gulf States Independent Athletic Association on Thursday and while many of the comments provided in the first meeting with the media were predictable, the new association’s members charted a new course with their inclusion of public schools in talks about member schools.
The private school association was expected to talk about private schools, but Lott took aim on members of other associations when announcing prospective new members.
“Who can join this association? We talked about that,” Lott said. “It’s any school -- public, private, charter, it doesn’t matter. We’ve decided that whoever wants to join, there is an admission process where you fill out an application and it goes to the board to be voted on.”
WATCH GSIAA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GLYNN LOTT IN THURSDAY’S PRESS CONFERENCE (click)
Membership in the GSIAA officially opens on Sunday and organizers have mentioned in the past that charter schools and home schools have expressed an interest in joining. But certain large public schools, looking for an organization where they can write their own bylaws, have expressed an interest in joining the new organization and for the first time GSIAA officials have publicly addressed the subject.
“Every Friday night, I’m still coaching football so I put my phone in my head case when I pick up my headphones to put them on,” Lott said. “When I go back (after the game), every Friday night, without fail, since Week One, I’m getting a text from somebody with a score. I don’t even know who they are. I’ve just got a phone number with a score on there, saying, ‘Our kids can’t do this any more’ or ‘We’re interested’ or something like that.
“We’re getting calls every day. I didn’t go over this (previously), but why our name is Gulf States is we are getting some interest from schools in other states. I talked to one yesterday from Tennessee. They’ve got a thing going on where some of their schools have broken off from the Tennessee association and they’re looking for something. So that would be a great offer for our northern (Alabama) schools if we get more interest. But there’s been a lot of interest from the public schools.”
Lott, currently the head football coach and headmaster at Macon East Academy, spoke on the structure of the new association, which includes 17 founding board members that are equally split between private schools in the Alabama High School Athletic Association and private schools in the Alabama Independent School Association. Three board members from the latter group were on hand Thursday -- Hooper Academy headmaster and coach Darryl Free, Clarke Prep headmaster Bob Taylor and Lowndes Academy coach Matt Marshall.
“We’re all facing the same problems, we’re all hearing the same thing,” Taylor said. “Having an opportunity to have a voice? We’ve had voices in the AISA, but you still don’t have a total voice. You have a total voice in everything going on around this and that’s a huge draw.”
Several schools from the Alabama Independent School Association, which voted to disband its athletic program at the end of the 2026-27 school year, have already voted to join the GSIAA and Lott said the first season (2027-28) will close out membership in April. Few AHSAA-member private schools are expected to join by April because their classification extends through 2028. Straddling the fence while debating between AHSAA and GSIAA membership is expected, board members say.
“It’s absolutely what I expected,” Free said. “Any time you introduce something new, people can be infatuated about the idea, but it’s not the coaches and headmasters making the decisions. They have to have information to take back to their board. At the end of the day, every school making a decision is coming away from something they’re very used to. Sometimes, it just takes a leap of faith.”
“I kind of figured that would happen,” Taylor added. “We’ve had a couple of schools, even in AISA, asking, ‘Are we sure?’ A lot of people are going to be in that ‘I want to wait and see how this goes.’ Do I think there’s going to be a couple of schools that are going to jump? I think there are. I think they’re kind of fed up. I think you’ve got people that are going to wait and see what it looks like, but you’ve also got people that are going to jump and jump quickly.”
Lott said he continue to hold meetings throughout the state to sell prospective members on the idea of a new athletic association in the state.
“That’s my job, to prove what kind of organization it is,” Lott said. “We’ve got to go out there and get some sponsors, show people we’re doing it right and (introducing) the (championship) venues will be huge. Giving the schools a voice in that, I was a little shocked the basketball coaches really felt like the bigger venues were not what they wanted. They wanted something with an atmosphere.”
Lott met with the basketball coaches last week, a meeting attended by Free, the boys’ basketball coach at Hooper.
“I am very encouraged with what we’re doing because you have a voice in every avenue of this,” Free said. “We talked about what region tournaments would look like, what venues would look like, what the scheduling would look like. Any time you’re starting something new, you’re able to look at what didn’t work in other associations. What are we frustrated with? What can we put on this blank canvas to make us all like it a little better? We were able to talk through some of those things and I’m really excited about what possibilities lie ahead for basketball.”
Lott said he was a little surprised when the feedback from basketball coaches suggested smaller arenas for championship play.
“Everyone’s infatuated right now with these huge venues to play in,” he said. “I don’t know if you get your atmosphere (in those venues). That is kind of what the basketball coaches were talking about. You play in some places and it feels like the court is 1,000 feet away from you. You can’t get involved, there’s no cheering. The kids have said that, too, so we’ve kind of talked about do we look at some smaller venues, centrally located, to do it. That was one of the very first questions I ever got. Can we play at Protective Stadium? Yeah, we could do that, but is that what we really want? Once again, we’re asking the schools what they want.”
On Wednesday, the founding board will hold its third meeting since the new association was launched.
“I think the biggest thing in that meeting with be sponsorships,” Lott said. “If I can get some (championship) venues handled, that can be discussed on that day as well.”
Free said it was exciting to discuss the various options available to the new association.
“It’s great to give people another choice, another option,” he said. “As Glynn mentioned, if we didn’t make a drastic decision (to start the GSIAA), we kind of saw where the end of the road was for everybody and it was one destination. So we wanted to come up with something that gave people another choice. What choice they end up making is up to them, but it’s always great to have options available.”